Just want to say thanks again Leon for sharing your adventures with us. Best thread on this site!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Any updates? it's been a month, we're on a new page, and maybe that snot-nosed kid has learned something.

p.s. I apologize for disappointing those who, like I, envision good times when this thread is bumped.

Nothing interesting. Have a trip planned in August, been to the local a few times but nothing interesting.

I saw the discussion getting out of control, was going to respond but then for some reason couldn't log in for a couple of days. Then I went to Costa Rica for a week and change and by the time I revisited this thread I figured what's the point. It's basically like arguing politics, the other side will never be convinced.

Hopefully I'll either have a sweet pic from the local soon, or a good TR in August.

I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone when I say that a Costa Rica TR would fill in the time nicely!

+1. Only been once, but found Costa Rica awesome. Would be interested to hear of your experience.

leon says 'Costa Rica for a week and change'
my brain reads 'Costa Rica for a week and a month'

Sure, why not. I may be missing a lot of details bc I didn't go in expecting to do a TR, and not many photos since my wife took most of them, but here goes...

We were all set to go in Mar 2022 but delayed the trip bc of COVID/can't afford to get stuck in Costa Rica if one of us pops positive. We rescheduled for late Jun and luckily by the time the trip rolled around all flight/testing requirements had gone away. My wife went with her friends 8/21, learned to surf and had a blast, and literally the first thing she said when she returned from that trip, at midnight, was "we're going back some point soon".

For my part, I have little to no interest in the outdoors, have never surfed (but did swim competitively for 15 yrs, taught lifeguarding, swimming, etc), and abhor insects, so I'm doing this for her. My youngest has surfed and loves it, oldest is interested in learning. So we're booked for a weekish long trip, surf camp pretty much every day, and the rest is up in the air.

I'm going into this trip with an open mind- I figure if I set the bar super low I won't be disappointed. My main concern is actually my cervical spine- I herniated a disc in Mar 2020 and it took me 6 months to recover. My first day back working out I realized I had muscle atrophy on the affected side and basically did one arm push ups and pull ups. I've gotten most of my strength back but there clearly was neurologic injury which I wasn't even aware of at the time. The couple of times I swam, having my head up exactly like I could picture being on a surfboard would recreate would send shooting pain down my arm. So while I'm signed up for lessons, I'm assuming I may have to bail early on and just find something else to do. We'll see.

Day 1

We leave SD early after for LA via... Amtrak. My memories of amtrak being the nut low from college are erased- I'm pleased that everything basically runs on time, we find a 4 top table, food options are decent and... there's liquor. Well, this is pleasant. I learn a few days after an Amtrak train derails and several people are killed

Get to our hotel by the airport, grab dinner and chill for an early flight the next day.

Day 2

We hit the cluster F that is LAX, deal with the cluster F of the TSA, and fade the cluster F that is United airlines. Painfully long flight to Costa Rica is made more painful by weather- we're on approach to Liberia, and the clouds are THICK. Can't see anything. Getting lower... lower... ANDDDD, we pull up suddenly. Gaining altitude. Turning around. We can see out the windows- are we over the Pacific, again? WTF. People are getting panicky, I reassure my kids this a good thing. If we were actually going to die none of us would know it, the fact that we're alive to worry about it means we're not dead yet.

Captain comes on the PA- weather was so bad they can't see the runway. Divert to San Jose! There, we refuel and wait for the weather to clear- we end up only waiting 1/2 an hr or so, but all told it's a 2 hr+ derail.

Now comes the 1.5 hr ride to the coast where we're staying- it's getting dark, we're exhausted and this day has basically been consumed by travel. Finally get to the resort- it's a nice set up. Right on the beach, everyone is super friendly. They all speak English, but wife has intermediate Spanish and the boys and I know a few words and we're determined to try and speak Spanish whenever possible. They've got us set up in their "family" room, meaning it occupies the entire second floor of this building/warehouse type set up. There's AC in every room, multiple bedrooms, things look clean, I only have to kill a couple bugs... this could work. We've got nothing on the agenda until 10am the next morning, for the first surf lesson. We go out, grab some local food, and are asleep by 11pm.



A welcome site at the tail end of a very long day of travel.

Day 3

We get up at a leisurely pace, grab some breakfast and chill before the lesson. We're in a beginner's camp with about 15 other people, the vast majority of people are 20-30 somethings and even the dudes who we learn are older are quite fit and I assumed they were younger than me. The lead instructor taught my wife when she was here in August and is basically using her as an example for everything. Everyone else looks nervous and they're leaning on my wife for advice- there's zero egos present, this looks like a cool group of people.

My wife and I are paired up with Carlos (same guy my wife had last time). Kids have a dude who looks super stern but is actually really chill. We practice popping up on land for a bit, go over some principles and then get right to it.

My wife and I were having a debate as to whether prior swimming ability was an asset for surfing. She maintains it's not, and while I defer to her experience I can't see that being true. I just have to assume being able to swim, REALLY swim, would help one manage the waves/catch waves that couldn't otherwise be caught/etc. Plus I just don't think my wife has a concept of what it means to be a legit swimmer. She's decent and is in no danger of drowning if she falls off a boat. But any of you high level swimmers out there know what I'm talking about- swimming is like walking. Given calm conditions there's basically no limit to how much we can swim.

I hindsight I can definitely say I was correct. Being a strong swimmer is a definite asset. I was able to catch several waves in positions a weaker swimmer couldn't just bc of a velocity difference. There were also times the instructor and I just plowed through the first wave and got out past the break in time, vs my wife who had to get pummeled repeatedly bc she just couldn't paddle fast enough through the troughs.

Now, all that said-
- upsides- caught several waves early- this is easy!
- instruction was clear- when I didn't pop up/plant feet etc the way they said, yeah I bailed.
- my neck appears to be fine

downsides-
- I have no ability to read the waves- I have no idea what I'm looking for. Without Carlos yelling "paddle" and "up", I'd be in the dark.
- I have horrible motion sickness. I knew this, but OMG

I surfed for about 1/2 hr and then got SO sick. Crawled out on to the beach, heart just pounding away, thought maybe I was just out of shape (I am)... nope. Laid on the beach for about an hr (90 degree weather) until the nausea passed. Stumbled back to the room, heavy ass board in hand. Barely made it to the bathroom- laid on the floor for a 30 min. Forced myself to take a shower just so I could lay in bed. Everyone else is back now, having fun. I stay in bed another hr before I feel right.

OK, we've got a plan for tomorrow. Dramamine it is. The rest of the day we chill, explore the town, play games in the room, etc. Minimal insects as before. We've got an earlier lesson tomorrow.

Day 4

We sleep in pretty late, and have to rush breakfast etc to make our lesson. I down 25mg of Dramamine as opposed to 50mg, don't want to be drowsy the whole day.

Second day is building off the first for me. Caught several more waves, I'm getting SOME concept of what I should be looking for. Downside-
- HORRIBLE MOTION SICKNESS, AGAIN. Again I last about 1/2 hr. I actually vomited in the ocean on this day, it was that bad. Same process getting off the beach, back to the room, etc. F me this is horrible.

Apparently it's the rainy season, which we didn't think to check before booking this trip. It pours torrentially off and on throughout our trip, but it's not a big deal. Something about being on vacation, in Costa Rica, etc. Totally normal to be walking barefoot down the street for dinner, then getting drenched on the way back to the room. Kids are handling it well also which is a plus. If I can just not get sick and actually get some real surf time in!

Day 5

OK we're going all out today. I take 50mg of dramamine, some meclizine which my wife had, pre-emptive zofran AND I skip breakfast. Success! Zero nausea, I was able to surf for the entire duration. Caught more waves, learning how to turn JUST a bit, starting to think I'm incrementally figuring this out.

AND... HOLY F I'm drowsy. I spent the rest of the day in daze. Can't focus, I know we had fun but I also know I was half asleep the whole time. At some point during the day we booked a combined volcano/nature tour and ziplining for the next day, so we're taking a surf break tomorrow. I'm pleased- all the downsides this whole time we've been in Costa Rica have been bc of surfing- either sickness or being drugged out of my mind.

Day 6

Finally have some pics for you all! We might the guide early and take the 1.5 hr trip back inland. Make our way up to the park... yeah, there are a TON of bugs here. Industrial amounts of bug spray keep them to a minimum.







Spotted within 2 min of walking into the jungle, pretty cool.

The volcano technically is active, and thus comes with a bunch of hot springs/other evidence of ongoing seismic activity. Every year apparently they pull some boiled bodies from the water.













Our guide has sharp eyes. He spotted 90% of all the wildlife we saw. This coral snake was only 6 inches long.























Not pictured- the ridiculous amount of ants that were crawling everywhere, and the spiky caterpillars that any sane human would know "don't touch".

We walked for several hours and it was pretty awesome to walk 2 min away from the car and suddenly be in legit jungle. After, we drove to the zipline place, which provided lunch as well. None of us had ever been ziplining before, so I didn't know what to expect. Given that, I'd say it exactly met expectations. Pretty fun, nice views, just precarious enough that you're excited, but obv safe enough bc let's get real, it's a tourist attraction. The platforms we launched from the the most precarious- picture rusting metal, stairs starting to pull away from the trees they're anchored to, etc. I could see some larger person breaking the platform and falling to their death.

The zipline tour lasted about an hr total, after which we headed out, stopped at (McDonald's) for food... don't ask. My kids wanted to see what items unique to Costa Rica were available. Unique items... at a McD's. Sigh. So I grab a Kit Kat shake (don't have those in the states) and we get our guide some food too. 1.5 hrs later, we're back at the resort and pretty tired.

Day 7

OK, here's the plan for motion sickness- 50mg dramamine, zofran, no breakfast, no meclizine. Works like a charm, I'm able to surf but am not drowsy afterwards. Periodically each day, we've had video analysis or specific lessons on balance, strength, etc. Here's where we've been able to catch up with the other people in the camp- it appears that we're way ahead of the curve for most of the other attendees. Some people have only caught 1 or 2 waves, for example. My kids are darlings of the camp, obv- all the ladies ooh and ahh every time a video of the kids comes up; pro tip- if you're single, bring or rent some kids to a surf camp. EZ game.

I forgot to mention that we have been adopted by an iguana. We've named him Joe, since the wifi for our room is called "Joe's Apartment". Joe certainly acts like he owns the place- he's hanging out on our balcony or outside our window 50% of the time. Little fear of us, although he ran when we offered him food. I can't believe we never took a pic of Joe.

We've eaten at a different place every day and I have to say, I've been mildly disappointed in the food, regardless of the cuisine. The "Italian" place we tried? Obv didn't have high expectations yet we were still disappointed. Argentinian place? Just ok. Local food? OK, nothing great. Maybe it's because we're eating food made for tourists. The beach town isn't a huge tourist spot (yet), but it's not unknown either. The prices, for Costa Rica, are high. Plus we feel the need to tip on top of the service charge which isn't keeping the costs down. In retrospect I wish the food was better, 3/10 over the course of the entire week.

Day 8

This is the final day- the wrap up treat is a trip to another beach where the waves are bigger. We need to be up at 5am for a 5:30 departure!

So I get up. Need coffee, but I need to get some dramamine in me as well. Wife says the ride is an hr each way- WTF? Now I start thinking- I cannot get motion sick out there. If I get motion sickness, and literally my respite is to wait until everyone else is done, THEN get into a van for an hr? F that noise. I consider bailing, realize that if I spend my last day in Costa Rica like that I'm going to really be upset, then definitely decide to bail. So wife and kids go, and it looks like my first surf camp is in the books!

Now I've got the whole AM to myself. Drink coffee, catch up on email/video games, grab breakfast solo. It was pleasant. Family gets back, they've had a good time. Turns out several other people also bailed due to the time/being too worn out from the preceding week.

That last evening is the wrap up party/award ceremony. They show videos of everyone, including the intermediate camp. Uh yeah, THOSE people actually know what they're doing. Wife wins "best wipe out" award and her acceptance speech is basically "at least I won something!". After that a ton of alcohol comes out. Most of us bought rounds for the other attendees and the instructors. We send the kids back to the room and then get back to partying. Turns out the kids' instructor has 4 kids, all with different mothers. He couldn't make the party bc he was with one of his kids, that is until another guy called him and lo and behold he shows up 5 min later. He downs one shot immediately, I give him another one which he also downs, and then multiple young ladies attach themselves to his hip. Surf instructor stereotype- check. Explains the 4 kids too

Eventually the people that are still standing decide to go to a local nightclub- wife and I have to bail but I'm sure hookups galore occurred.



1/100 of the net alcohol consumed this trip.

Final day-

Completely forgot to mention- tropical storm Bonnie was a thing/threat our final few days in Costa Rica! It made landfall a day or two before we were supposed to leave, and was supposed to be right near the airport the day of. This isn't good. It didn't affect anything surf-wise other than pouring rain, but no we've got to deal with the reality that-
- we might not even get to the airport
- our flight might not take off

Despite all of this, everything SEEMS to be fine. All flights scheduled to depart on time. Our ride to the airport takes a little longer due to the rain but all roads were passable. By the time we get to the airport, skies are CLEAR. Weird. Anyways, so we managed to leave without incident, and after a connecting flight in Houston finally made it back to SD around 11pm.

Post trip thoughts- Costa Rica is cool. I'd definitely go back, but I'd want to do something different. The surfing was meh, I can see how some people love it but it's not cool enough for me to structure a trip around. All the nonsense I have to go through to get through the motion sickness doesn't help. If I went back I'd definitely seek out other activities and BETTER FOOD! Keeping expectations low definitely helped as well- can only be pleasantly surprised. And, in theory I've earned some good will points with the wife, facilitating future gambling trips!

Thanks for the write-up leon!

Agree on the food. It was ok, but I didn't come across anything that made me think, "I need to have this again." Platos tipicos I think they call it--kind of rice/corn/chicken/pepper mix?

I was inland, so more of your hike/zipline experience. Pretty cool there, lots of wildlife.

Thanks leon!

It does seem a little strange to leave San Diego for a surf trip, lol.

Is that waterfall the one with all the stairs to get to it? If so, that kicked my ass as a fat smoker when I was there the first time. (Only slightly fat non-smoker now!)

My goals were different from yours, I wanted to see as much wildlife, including bugs, as possible, lol. Here's my favorite pic from my trips:



I also agree. I didn't have anything I even remember, but I do remember it was all pretty meh.

Here's hoping Spin Poker never starts causing you motion sickness

your order cracked me up and pairs perfectly with the sigh

thanks for the TR Leon. glad you caught a few waves

Leon, why do you take Dramamine instead of Bonine?

Bonine seems to work just as well, with no drowsiness..

Leon - do you have TSA Precheck and CLEAR? If you have AMEX Platinum, they're both free - well worth it, especially with how much you travel. I've flown out of LAX and Vegas a few times since and rarely takes me more than 3 minutes tops to clear security. Also makes it far less likely you ever get hassled for having large amounts of cash on you - I've even mistakenly had full-sized drinks in my carry-on get waved through

I don't know if it's "the" waterfall, but yes this one did have a ton of stairs to get to. Sweet pic of the ? jaguar.
That's meclizine. We always just have dramamine on hand, but the only day I got really drowsy was when I took meclizine as well.

I had CLEAR before, signed up on a free trial then cancelled bc it didn't seem worth it at the time. The only airport it applied to me at the time was Vegas and literally only leaving, not going. I'll look into it again. Always mean to do TSA pre and I'm too lazy to sign up. I feel like I travel just enough where it's worth it, just infrequently enough or with my kids that it's not.

Fantastic TR. I laughed at a few spots. Sounds like I'll need to rent some kids and go surfing.

Newark has CLEAR, so it's very useful as I fly out of there ~half of the time.

If you're going out of the country quite a bit, look into Global Entry. IIRC, it's not that much more than TSA Pre. Gives you the TSA Pre stuff, plus customs and immigration are pretty much "Welcome back to the United States."

I got GS ~2017, so it may be like PreCheck is becoming--that everyone's got it, so the savings aren't that great any more (?). Haven't been out of the country since covid.

I was in Costa Rica once for work many years ago and have two lasting memories of that trip:

1. The certainty of my imminent demise during the bus trip from San Jose, over the mountain, to the coast where we were working. To this day I don't know how that bus didn't go careening off the cliff.

1a. The ice cream stands along the road. Why are there so many ice cream stands? Is that for the tourists or is it just a thing there?

2. The bar down the street from our hotel that turned out to be a brothel. Young dumb me had no idea until late into the night when one of the guys I was there with took one of the friendly local girls upstairs. I thought all along they were just excited to be talking to the Americans in town. The next morning my colleague told us that he was too drunk to do anything but was still out $100.

I would think Costa Rica in July would be hot as balls. Not so?

https://www.costarica.com/weather/15...-forecast.html

I would think USA#1 would have educated its population better. Equatorial countries don't fluctuate much in temp.

Is your motion sickness only water related? Roller coasters? Elevators? Airplanes? This sounds awful and I would be doing my best to avoid the horrible symptoms you described.

I travel to eat food. I am crossing off Costa Rica off my list.

Definitely not a food destination compared to countries nearby. Great for a bunch of other reasons though.

I think it's just your garden variety motion sickness x 2 or 3, something like that. Definitely been seasick before, and if I try to read in a vehicle... fuggedaboudit. I can handle most rides and airplanes.

Interestingly, what really kills me is when my vestibular system tells me something different is happening than my eyes. So VR, IMAX, anything like that. OMG so nauseating. There's a VR flight simulator at San Diego's air and space museum- I went on with my youngest before and made the mistake of letting him fly. He rolled us "upside down" (so basically the screen is saying we're upside down but the actual ride probably only turned 100 degrees, something like that). Instantly sick, and he just kept rolling back and forth, etc. I think I'd be better on an actual plane that was actually doing barrel rolls.

Sounds like an opportunity to do some research! Eagerly awaiting that TR!