Secret surf haven found in Costa Rica

By Scott Willoughby, Staff Writer
Denver Post

June 4, 2007

At the risk of overstating the obvious, it's tough to become a surfer in Colorado.

Lack of an ocean aside, I took up the sport a few years back and probably a few decades too late. What began as shoulder surgery rehab on a visit to Maui took root in my action-oriented psyche when I almost accidentally caught a wave and fell in love with the speed and simplicity of this sport of Hawaiian kings.

Not to imply that surfing is simple. While there are enough amazing surfers in the world to make you believe it's as easy as falling off a log, it's important to remember that you're actually trying to stand up on the log, and ride it back to the beach. It's a lot like snowboarding, except you start on your belly, there aren't any bindings and the mountain is actually moving underneath you.

Modest success in my early efforts has brought me back to the sport on an annual basis, pulling me out into the ocean on short trips to exotic locales like Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador and a little spot I like to call "Kooksville," population: me.

Most recently I made a return trip to Costa Rica, a sort of nostalgic pilgrimage to the break where I broke my first surfboard. Stefan Canas, an ex-pat friend from Aspen who married a local Tica and opened up a cluster of surfing-oriented guest houses under the inviting name of "Casas Pura Vida" (www.casaspuravida.com), graciously pretended to forget my last visit to his local break in the small town of Santa Teresa on the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula and stood on his oceanfront deck until he determined the coast was clear.

It wasn't, of course, but it's a big beach and not very crowded. So even when my longboard was smashing into the sand, he could safely sneak out to another spot while my head was being dunked underwater by the crashing surf.

The visit turned out to be good practice for the second leg of our journey, a visit to the renowned northern Nicoya surf town of Tamarindo and the legendary nearby breaks of Witch's Rock and Ollie's Point made famous by the film "Endless Summer II." Unlike me, Santa Teresa is regarded among surfers for its consistency, something that Tamarindo was known for before it became known for its crowds.

Fortunately, those crowds have established an industry in Tamarindo, a robust economy that caters to the needs of surfers by providing necessary rentals, lessons, tours and an unquantifiable number of watering holes in which to boast of your daily conquests, or drink yourself into memory loss.

Oddly enough, the whole thing reminds me of fly-fishing. Surfing demands far more patience than you might expect, waiting for the right waves as you might wait for a fish to strike. You might spot a potential lunker now and again, and then it comes down to placement, just like casting, before you can set the hook. Then that sucker takes off like a tarpon, a wild animal that you still have to land, even play.

Suffice it to say, I still lose a lot of flies.

And that's where guide services and schools like the Witch's Rock Surf Camp in Tamarindo come in.

"The vast majority of our clients are beginners," said Colin Briers, sales manager for the one-stop shop at Witch's Rock (www.witchsrocksurfcamp.com). "Really avid surfers tend to be 'in the know.' They get information from friends or other surfers and just sort of figure it out. What we do is provide all that for everyone else."

Witch's Rock helped me avoid the crowds of Tamarindo's main beach break with junkets out to nearby Playa Grande and the famous break after which the operation was named. There I met up with Marc Bair, a winter employee at Beaver Creek who had similar mud-season surfing intentions, and a few more skills.

"We're on the budget tour, but this trip was definitely worth it," said Bair, who surfed alongside high school mates Adam Pitonak and Matt Mainardi of Philadelphia. "I probably wouldn't have gone if it wasn't for these guys. They wanted to surf here ever since Endless Summer II. But I'm glad I did. Witch's was awesome."

I knew that, of course. I just prefer not to overstate the obvious.

Staff writer Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.

Copyright 2007 The Denver Post

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