16th - 18th August
I don't have much to say about this place other than it's SiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiK!
Best waves of the trip so far. I surfed twice a day for 3-4hrs each session and ended up with rashes all over the place, it was soo worth it.
Just 20mins South of the Americanopolis of Tamarindo is a really undeveloped beach called Playa Avellana, a dirt road takes you off the main road and delivers you directly to a beach front car park which is literally someone's garden with two guys who collect your money... There is a large pig that roams around and quite often snuffles around on the beach front by the surf. If you carry on round there are a few little beach front shacks with space for camping and a couple of small bars but on the whole this place is still relatively untouched.
I stayed in a bar/restaurant called Iguana Verde which was basically a lady called Rita's house in the centre of which she had made a bar and stocked a fridge full of beers... the local alcoholics kept her busy and every night I would walk in and out of random, loud, shouty but friendly, incoherent conversations between the three or four guys that propped up the bar. One guy, Harold Marselas or 'Ula Ula' claimed to be one of the big surfers in the town and would grab me and tell me for half an hour at a time about how he digged my style, my ride, that fact I surfed little Hawaii and that it was in the heart and the eyes... 'No Bullshit, No big mouth etc...'. He would tell me about big days surfing Witches Rock, Ollies Point & Playa Negra and with every story he would stagger around acting out the drop and turns and shouting 'Back side, Back side'!! He was an awesome character and remarkably active in the mornings until lunchtime when it was time for a beer!
Rita's place was super basic and totally opposite to the places I had been staying with dad. I scored a private room for $10/night, the matress sagged in the middle so much that it was like sleeping in a hammock, the door had been kicked in and the handle was missing, instead a small metal bracket had been screwed into the door and a padlock was provided for the feeling of security despite the fact that you couldn't close the door fully! The whole setup was super basic but absolutely perfect for what I needed.
Rita was a woman of few words but had a wicked laugh, she let me use her kitchen and otherwise left me to it. I lived cheap on a diet of porridge, pasta and even a pack of sausages. I was the only tourist in the place, it was a lonely existence but Thea and I chatted everyday on Skype and I was happy catching waves all day long. Every morning I would get up at 6am and walk 20mins up the beach, passed through the river where aligators allegedly lay in waiting and up to the reef called little Hawaii... the wind was offshore most of the time and the sun shone hard.
On my second day I had the best surf of my life at little Hawaii. A super fun A frame peak was reeling right for 50-75m, the reef bubbling away below and the occasional turtle popping up in the wave. It was like a machine, one after another, with time to paddle back to my spot, catch my breath, smile to myself about how awesome the last wave was and then turn and go again... the killer thing was that I had it to myself for 4hrs... Unreal!
That evening the sunset session was more crowded, I shared the peak with ten guys, it was bigger, getting on double over head on set and there were plenty to go around. I got chatting to a super friendly guy called Michael from San Diego, he was digging my trip and really kindly invited me to stay with him and his family when I reach San Diego, his two sons, Nikki and Sandy run a surf adventure company called California Surf Adventures. Check em out, they play Frisbee!!!!!
Just as the sun was dipping below the horizon a wide and chunky set wave screaming my name swung past the pack and right to where I was sat... it was beautiful... such a long drop, right from the peak and walled up all the way down the line... I nailed my bottom turn, swung up toward the top of the wave and flicked the board round for a second drop, pump, pump, cut back to the pocket, one last pump and as the wave closed ahead of me I dropped onto my belly to body board out onto the beach. A perfect end to a perfect day!!!! :) :) :) :)
I don't have any photos of Little Hawaii or many of Playa Avellana as I was in the water most of the time... you will just have to take my word for it!
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