Well, I've been back now for a while. First I was avoiding my computer. Then I was busy with family in town... then I was just plain lazy. Today - I am back to feeling productive. So, here's a bit of a conclusion to my Costa Rica trip...
I tried surfing two days after the whole board to the nose incident. Went out on a boat trip to Witch's Rock and Ollie's Point - both are amazing, world-class surf spots that were totally beyond my ability. I enjoyed the scenery and watching the other surfers. Got up a few times, but the waves were really moving too fast for me to stay up (yeah, I chickened out). I also realized that I had hurt my ribs pretty badly (I've since decided that they're bruised) and it hurt to lay on the board and pop-up too much. The hour long boat ride back from Ollie's Point was pretty dramatic because we were caught in a storm.
A big storm.
There was hail. And wind. So much wind. And rain. Biting, cold rain. We couldn't see land because of the fog and the rain. The water was incredibly choppy. I was crouched down low, on the floor of the boat to avoid the rain and hail and just had to brace myself for the bumps. Sometime during that hour, I just started grinning, a stupid, silly grin. Yeah, the boat ride sucked. But I was in the ocean. Off the coast of Costa Rica. Learning to surf. Wow. My life is pretty darn awesome.
Oh yeah, I found out the next (still very rainy) day that I was in the ocean during Tropical Storm Alma.
Anyway, the next day I didn't surf because of all the rain. The ocean was a gross brown color from all the run-off and it was just generally kind of crappy out.
The day after that I tried to go out. Conditions were pretty ideal... but I couldn't do it. When I tried to paddle, I wanted to cry. The pressure on my bruised ribs made them hurt so badly (at this point, it hurt to go from laying down to sitting up, so laying down on my stomach and paddling, or pushing-up to standing was kind of a ludicrous request).
So... the next day I left the beach. It was so sad, but I would have felt even worse to be so close to the water and not been able to surf. Plus, I'm alone and I was pretty much done entertaining myself.
Next... Arenal Volcano
