I walked out of the Juan Santamaria at about 9:30 at night and was immediately met with the hot humid Costa Rican air and the 24 hour hustle and bustle of the San Jose streets. I had been to Costa Rica on surf trips before, but this year was different… I was meeting up with a huge crew of xc skiers for a week of waves, adventure, and pretty much anything but the Nordic norm. 

I had arrived a day later than everyone else and was playing catch up, trying to make it to the Nicoya Peninsula and to the town of Santa Teresa where I would meet up with Zack Simons, Crystal Ward, Colin Rodgers, Nicole De Yong, Gus Kaeding, my Nordic jumping girlfriend Jessica Jerome, and two of my surfing amigo’s Jill Prouty and Reid Canady.

I had arrived a few days later than everyone else because I had been flying standby and ran into some over crowded flights in Atlanta. Which is why I was now rolling solo into San Jose at 9:30 at night with no way to get to Santa Teresa which was a solid 5 hour drive and ferry ride away. If you’re traveling alone the cheapest (and longest) way to get to the Nicoya Peninsula is by bus, which leaves daily from the airport at 6 am. Having already missed the first day in our rental house I wasn’t too stoked in having to spend a whole day traveling by bus to meet up with everyone so I chose the next cheapest option, which was on an 8-seater plane with Sansa Airlines.

My flight didn’t leave until 7 the next morning so I was stuck spending the night in San Jose. With one of the highest homicide rates in the word, dangerous drug trade, and legal prostitution it’s not exactly the type of place a gringo like myself should be hanging out in at night hauling a surfboard bag around. But I’m always up for an adventure.I had just booked my 80-dollar ticket for the flight in the morning though, so I wasn’t too fired up to spend a lot of money on a hotel room. I snagged one of the first solicitor’s I saw once I walked out onto the street and started negotiating.

It’s so funny how things like this work in third world countries, and thankfully it wasn’t my first time in the melee that is departures terminal in San Jose. Everyone is slipping someone else some kind of cash, everyone is played off by someone else… and everything is negotiable. Most cab drivers are paid off by their amigo’s who own hotels or hostels and get a little bonus if they bring them business. I started talking to a guy and in broken Spanglish we understood each other and that I needed a pretty cheap place to stay closed to the airport.He brought me to his buddy’s place, which was only 5 minutes away from the airport in a really nasty part of town. Lots of things were boarded up and every window and door was barred and double caged on top of that. I managed to talk the cab driver down to 30 bucks for the room plus 10 for driving me back and forth to the airport. This place was a shit hole so it probably wasn’t worth that but I didn’t mind. It was rad. there was one bed in a 10 by 10 room with stained walls and a toilet sticking out of one of the walls with someone else’s urine in it. When I saw the room I realized that I didn”t talk them down enough… but I was tired and just wanted to pass out so I could get out of there in the morning.

The 8 seater Sansa flight to Tambor was awesome. It was a 30 min flight that departed from a small building right next the real airport, there were no paper tickets, no metal detectors, and the flight boarded 5 minutes before take off. The Tambor airstrip was only 35 minutes away from our house in Santa Teresa so Jessica and Crystal met me there a rental car and we made it back to house before noon.

Our house was in a pretty sick location. Not on the beach, but only a quick walk through the jungle and you were looking out on the Pacific Ocean. There were a few mornings when there were monkeys hanging out in the tree’s on the path and there were always cool lizards and snakes and stuff. We chose this location because it was within close walking distance of the Santa Teresa surf break to the north, and Playa Carmen to the south.We made it out to the beach as soon as possible and the waves were a little disappointing. Waist high and kind of closing out. This didn’t stop Colin from logging a solid 3-hour surf session and burning the crap out of his back though. Colin got way into surfing while we were down there and improved a lot starting on a long board and working his way down to a 7 foot ‘fun board’ by the end of the week. Stratton xc skier Parker Tyler was in town with a surf camp and we met up with her on the first day and she gave us the low down on the surf spots and the tides.

We spent the rest of the week pretty much just living the dream and surfing as much as possible. With the water and air temps never leaving the mid to upper 80’s your arm strength was the only thing holding you back from surfing all day long. Although the waves lacked power and were a little small the first day or two, a good south swell moved in by the middle of the week and the waves were consistently shoulder to overhead a few days in a row. The town of Santa Teresa is just a kilometer long stretch of dirt road with a few outdoor restaurant shacks and surf shops. We spent a lot of nights going out to eat as a group or cooking food and hanging out on the porch of our house. The road was so bumpy and dusty that we soon found out it was much faster to get around on four-wheeler than in our one rental car.

It was an awesome week and a I think all of us thought is was pretty rad to go straight from skiing to surf in a matter of days. And I think we proved that as Nordies we can hold our own in the water too.  Gus on the way to the beachCrystal, Colin, Zack, Andy, Jess, NicoleColin, already rippin on day 2  our transportation me and Reid head out to surf glassy Trying to find the blue room on one of my best waves of the day chillin with Jill and Reid on the porch