Road trip to Mal Pais and Santa Teresa

Since buying a car is kind of a process, we ended up renting a car to head to the beach.  We call it the "clown car" and it screams tourist, but that's ok.  It was exactly what we needed- affordable, 4 wheel drive and enough room for Ember too.


The night before we left, Ember got jumped by 4-5 dogs on out property.  She had/has a few puncture wounds, but we are doing our best to keep them clean and avoiding going to the vet if possible.  We woke up early to leave on our trip and to avoid as much traffic as possible.  Driving is pretty crazy down here; not many rules, everyone going fast and looking out only for themselves.  We headed strait to the ferry in Puntarenas and got in the long line to load onto the boat.  By 9am we were hot and sweaty and looked forward to the boat's breeze.  As the line began to move, we crossed our fingers that we would make it and not have to wait until the next one, two hours later.  They decided the ferry was full AT us... After getting pretty disappointed, about 15 minutes later they told us that our small clown car would fit!!!  We were the last one let onto the ferry!  Since we had Ember, we had to sit in a special pet area.

We were psyched to finally get off the boat and closer to the beach.  We arrived at the Mal Pais Surf Camp about an hour and a half later.  The place was awesome!  Right across from the beach, pool, nice rooms, pool tables, ping pong, full kitchen for us to use, restaurant and bar, cute little Cabinas for $25/night, and the #1 perk was that they let us bring Ember, which no others would.  Our first night we had the entire resort to ourselves, since it is the rainy season.  Over the next couple days more people showed up and had a blast with them surfing, going out to eat, hanging by the pool, and playing the now infamous game of Pass the Pigs every night. 

The weekend we were there, happened to be the Costa Rican Triple Crown surf tournament.  The locals kicked ass!!! There were rumors of Kelly Slater being there, but we never saw him.  Over the 3 days, we saw some incredible surfing.  Jacob went surfing everyday and bought his first surf board- a local Mal Pais Surfboard.  The waves were a bit much for me, although I hope to go to some better beginner spots on one of our many trips to the different beaches.  The mornings were always gorgeous, and usually we had a refreshing rain in the afternoon. We could watch the storm coming for us and then just open up and POUR!

We planned on possibly going a few different places, but we fell in love with Santa Teresa and the surf camp. We did a day trip to Montezuma and tried to hike up to the waterfalls, but with all of the rain, the trail was nonexistent.  We went as far as we could, grabbing onto vines and trying to plant our feet in the mud.  We didn't stay long, as Mal Pais and Santa Teresa are more our style.  My friend Tara and I took a yoga class up on the hill that overlooked the entire ocean. At the end of the class, I realized I had a huge smile on my face while I listened to the waves crash on the beach.   It was AMAZING! I will post some pics of it when I get them.