Jan 31 - Feb 4

Marty and Joel took TJ fishing at 5:00 am the morning after he arrived. Although TJ is a vegetarian, he ate a couple of bites of the 50 pound Dorado he caught. We also forced down tons of Yellow Tail sashimi thanks to Marty, the Harvester of the Sea. Since we caught so much fish while in Santa Teresa, I brushed up on my fish recipes and made everything from baracuda tacos to mahi mahi three ways - grilled with Chipotle butter sauce, grilled in Banana Leaves (cut right off local plants), and blackened.

TJ hated the mushy Santa Teresa waves, so we decided to drive to the Caribbean coast to check out the waves at Puerto Viejo. We took the 2:30 ferry from Paquera to Puntarenas, navigated our way through San José and showed up in Puerto Viejo around 11:00pm. We parked out front and stayed the night at a nice, clean hotel called, Los Sueños. There was no swell at the infamous break called Salsa Brava, so we headed back to the Pacific coast. If you're ever in Puerto Viejo, be sure to check out the French bakery called the Croissanteria, down by the water.

Feb 5-9

We camped for free in Dominical right in front of the beach break (N 09°15.058
W 083°51.783). TJ and Marty surfed the board-breaking waves every morning, afternoon and evening. We got drenched two nights of four, with incredible down-pours - that's why they call it a rain forest. Marty strung a tarp across our site, and I was able to collect over 6 gallons of water one evening.

On our way to drop TJ off at the San José airport, we saw a turn-off to San José (near Parrita), marked 70 km, 40 less than going through Jacó. Of course, we took it and the short cut took about as long as the four hour Jacó route. It was worth driving the steep dirt roads over the mountains, as we got to cross a suspension bridge (above left) that was about 5 feet wide, with a couple of inches to spare, and about 200 feet long. The bridge started to wave up and down as we drove across... pretty fun and scary at the same time.