Ben Stoked After Catching His First Wave
A Pleasure Trip to Paradise
with Triple X Surfboards
by Sean Reavis
I am excited to share how, Ben Kosmatka, our Boarders Magazine contest winner, enjoyed his venture in Costa Rica with us and our wonderful host sponsors from Triple X Surfboards. It truly was an epic experience, by any cliche way of encapsulating those 5 days in paradise.
It all began when he traveled from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and it's unspooling of the winter's chill, and journeyed all the way to the West coast of Central America. The first leg of the trip involved meeting up with our very own fellow surf mogul Danny Braught, from Boarders, and the traveling crew from Triple X in Miami. They all hopped on the flight to catch their hop over to San Jose, Costa Rica...where I had arrived just an hour earlier and eagerly awaited the surf mates. Upon acquiring our 10 person passenger van for the 5 hour drive to Nosara, the 8 people on this trek headed out of the capital city to the tunes of American music, soundtracking their lives via the bumping UE MEGABOOM.
Everyone was smiling as we caught the primordial sights of triple canopy rain forests; which blanket the many hills and mountains of this wonderful country. With 840 miles of coastline and volcanoes and jungle, it would be impossible for all us not to be mesmerized. We we like kids, all staring due to the sensory overload of lush greenery and jurassic type splendor. It felt as if we were truly in a land that the rest of the world thankfully didn't plunder. The air was as clear as our enthusiasm to reach the western shore, so we didn't deviate from our agenda or navigation. Using GPS was simple enough, or though it seemed. That was until we left a town called Nicoya, and our road, Highway 150, suddenly became uphill. The sunset had just finished and now the trek was a bit more serious. We revved our way up the steep and winding road made of red dirt; steadily adhering to the GPS guidance. It was fun at first, as I was calling out all the upcoming turns and possible speed changes to Danny, who drove that van like a rally car driver. We actually felt like we were longboarding down the mountain at one point...then, the GPS ended. Our path was dark. All we had left to guide us was a little luck I guess, because there weren't any turn. The fact that our gas light was on, left us no choice but to believe we were going to be ok (what choice did we really have anyways). Suddenly the dark red road, illuminated only by our van's headlamps became two lanes and we started seeing the town lights of Nosara farther down the hill. We made it, still lost without GPS, but we made it. After we asked a few locals for some beach directions, we finally found our palace in the beach jungle.
We were staying at Barefoot Villas, a three story house with a pool and cabana; which, was just a walk to the hidden beach of Playa Guiones. We were all tired and was late, so we had a group pow-wow about the next day with Tim Cameron, Triple X founder and our host. We stumbled to our selected beds, like it was a reality show. Thankfully sleep came easy and the morning came quick. The sun usually rises and sets at 5:30 morning/evening respectively, so its hard not to wake up to nature. We grabbed our boards and walked down the gravel path to the beach. We saw a beach entrance that seemed to disappear into a final thicket of trees. The first views of that morning beach were exactly what you see in brochures of Costa Rica: a perfect desolate beach with Pacific waves crashing up to rocks and dark sand that disappears into the prehistoric edge of endless jungle.
We stopped staring eventually. It was time to get stretched, smile, and paddled out through the white wash. This was day 1 and our muscles weren't tuned in, much less ready for the workout. All of us land boarders struggled at first just to make it past the breakers -- lesson 1 accomplished. Ben was not complaining at all, actually he was giving such an enthusiastic effort, that I actually thought he'd catch a wave before me. In short we spent lots of time catching tumble washes and watching the Triple X guys (veterans to Nosara) carve up a few right handed waves. We called it a session after about an hour and made plans to come back for the afternoon tide. Overall not bad for a first day. Rinse, Wash... Repeat.
This pattern on Day 1 became our routine for Day 2: wake up, surf, breakfast, nap, lunch, explore, surf, dinner, sleep...and happily no one made an alterations. The third day involved more surf and more food; and consequently more smiles. There was just something so relaxing about being able to get fresh anything and everything. We literally knocked down starfruit, from a tree on the property, to make juice for lunch. We had fresh fish caught that day with vegetables and fruit from nearby areas untouched by 1st world capitalism and chemicals. At dinner that night, we learned of the upcoming Halloween party that was to occur the next day near a place we visited just north of us, called Playa Pelada. Those of us who elected on going were going to now need outfits.
On the fourth day, Halloween, we went filming and surfing per our normal schedule, and also decided to mix it up some more, because we were swapping boards and even opted for fins, and hand planes, and body boards. The weather made everything perfect. No matter what we were doing, somehow it was really fun. It always seemed to rain just when it was time to nap too. Costa Rica has an after lunch rain that is pretty consistent during their winter (wet months). Afternoon naps gave way of course to the evening dinner plans, and so we hopped on rented ATV Quads and headed caravan style with a regular vehicle to Rancho Nosara, famous for their Pargo Entero (whole Red Snapper). We dined and returned home to fine tune our Halloween outfits for the party.
Soon we were on our way! I was glowing in the dark jungle roads with all the glow sticks I strung from myself (in hindsight - I don't know what I was trying to be... It was fun anyway). We zoomed through the trees in the dark and found our Cantina near the beach for a costume fiesta. Everyone must have been there! We saw at least 200 people that evening wearing outfits and having a great time. We left there and headed to a local spot for the after party; which, paled in comparison to the costume fest. Somehow we managed to make it home that evening and parked our quads at Barefoot Villa.
Day 5 was all about exploring! Half the group decided on Zip Lining the jungle canopy and the other half decided on taking quads to the one of Nosara's famous waterfalls. Both of those trips are unto themselves - memorable ventures into the beautiful landscape found only in untouched parts of Earth. I could write a book and never fully describe the lush Eden that we found ourselves in awe at. We made our way back from our explorative treks and all hung out one last time before bedtime. We spent that evening reviewing footage and sharing laughs over quite a few many Imperials (Costa Rica's famous beer).
The next morning brought our new friend, Ben, one last Costa Rican sunrise for a while. We decided that we should go for one last morning surf session. We were in love with this zone of the planet, so the plan was to get done playing at the beach, pack Ben up and drive 5 hours to San Jose, so he could catch his flight home. We paddled out and surfed back to shore a couple of times. It was a short session, but one that definitely invited back our loving spirits, to return to Nosara. Our spirit was now primed, to experience more, to explore more, and hopefully find out more about ourselves via introspection; mused by the true beauty of Mother Earth and the power that only the Pacific seems to wield upon those who have seen its distant sunset.
See you again Costa Rica. Pura Vida.