I think it took me less than one minute when I got in the hammock to fall asleep, around 1600, only to wake up already in darkness with loads of insects bites, coming into the house I went to the bathroom to put some  repellent. While I was doing this Tourita woke up and dashed in half asleep pretty frightened saying “FUCK DUDE, I FORGOT! I FORGOT!” at the same time as he was spraying a generous amount of product onto pretty much everywhere.
I got into bed, and after feeling vaguely conscious during night I finally woke up feeling the first light of the day, it was 0530 and Tourita and PP were already up.

As I yawned and scratched my head I headed out to find that same surrounding of tropical paradise around us. PP was still trying to rescue his luggage so he went up to Sean (our landlord) to ask him is something had turned up during the night as his bag was supposed to arrive at 2300 the day before. No luck! Nothing came up and no news had reach Sean about it.

Sean together with his wife Jamie are the owners of the Villas Riviera, a stunning place staying 200m from the Pavones peak. Sean, a British born, grew up in the USA, now at 45 years old started coming to Pavones in 1981, and moved permanently here in 1992. Back then Pavones had no electricity, so he work in construction and after Pavones got light energy he worked as an electrician for some years until he bought Villas Riviera in 2001. Initially the place was owned by the son of some rich guy who had the fancy idea of starting up this condo, management was poor and he having some personal issues aggregated to it decided to sell. Sean then sold the property he had in Punta Banco and established himself here. Great guy! The place is magnificent; beautiful housing with great hard-wood ceilings, and surroundings embedded in a tropical rainforest scenario, the house it very well equipped, with kitchen, bathroom, air conditioner, fan, safe, outside shower, hanger, etc. (see photos below). And well, this is where we are staying for now! Visit Sean and Jamie’s website at www.pavonesriviera.com

We went to check Punta Banco for some waves but it was still very small so we decided to go to Laurel instead of Golfito – as it is much closer – to take care of our lives; get money from bank and buy things in the supermarket, to garner our kitchen and fridge.
We arrived there precisely when the bank was opening its doors, 0800 sharp, got onto the queue and waited for our turn; inside they have this wiggling chair game where you sit and change chairs, until it is your turn to be given a hand. As all other banks I’ve seen in Latin America, they have heavy security with big shotguns at the door and also inside, just to be safe I guess. Steven the guy who assisted me, counted the cambio (exchange) of my money I think around 6 or 7 times, also to be safe, otherwise I suppose the lack of money on the counter will come out from his pockets.

After the bank stuff we got to the abastecedor (supplier) and then the supermarket and got all we needed for cooking, including the beers Tourita was talking about since we got out of Portugal, only to say that it wasn’t that good some hours later.

Also in Laurel I got to see some indigenous with typical dressing that I’ve only seen one time when we got lost trying to get out of Pavones. I wanted to have a closer touch and speak with some of them and find out more how they will. I hope this may happen while we are still here.

Back to Pavones, and after putting down our things we came out to find , our gardener (I keep forgeting his name!), collecting pipas from the coconut tree. Pipas are the coconuts still green, the ones good to drink water, when they dry up they are called coco. We drunk the water and ate the inside with a spoon, very good! That time we also met Andy, a local surfer that works with Sean and we exchanged stories about surfing spots and how we have to use wetsuits in Portugal and he told us where and when to surf in Costa Rica. Pavones is best according to him during March and July, historical data says April and June, but local knowledge is normally the best.

Also at this time PP’s bag arrived brought by what we would call a cowboy on a pick-up. He was happy!

The day before, while trying to get network on my mobile (none was found) I noticed that a bar nearby has wireless and so after some pipas I went down with PP to find out how it works and to check e-mails and so on. The place is called Café de la Suerte (Luck’s Coffee) and is run by Hadas and Ran, a couple originally from Israel. Upon the question how much the internet cost, the reply was that it is based on a donation and all donations revert in benefit of the local school. Superb! The rates are virtually set at 500 colones (or US$1) per hour, and you can always back up your internet navigation with some excellent fresh fruit juices. All meals are vegetarian, so all healthy and conscious food.

With all computer tasks done we tried to check for waves, again at Punta Banco since Pavones was still very small, we passed, and with the little surf is showed we passed by and kept driving, I think we were almost in Panama, the only thing that detained us was the poor state of the road and our car (Pandereta) even being a 4×4 wouldn’t cope with it. Coming back the surf was a little better and we went for a dip, nothing special but at least we surfed, paddled a little, nice to be in warm water on trunks :-)

This was pretty much what we did today, dinner was served at La Plaza Bar, a Costa Rican version of a Portuguese Bitoque, if you don’t know what a Bitoque is don’t worry too much, if you are REALLY keen on finding it out then google it!

PURA VIDA! From Pavones, Costa Rica.