Pavones

Pavones
Pavones is a laid back pueblo way in the south west corner of Costa Rica.  Any further south and you are in Panama.  It was stinking hot, as usual, however the sands have dammed the river and a beautiful freshwater lagoon is the perfect swimming local.  Caleb was so happy to have freshwater swimming that he declared that we were not leaving until we had to fly back to Canada.  Jorja loved being in the water so much, that she learned how to swim!   She can now swim out into deep water, roll over and float on her back and then swim back to shore.  Yahoo!   We couldn't even find a place to buy post cards!
Sat am Marty and Caleb headed off to pick up Keith (who was visiting from Columbia) in Golfito. 
They turned the 1 hour drive into a 45 minute rally race including drifting around most corners.  They did the regular, get money, beer and rum (who needs groceries anyways!) and headed back.  We had not run into any police checks thus far, so it was lucky Keith was with them on this trip as the  Police found them.  They cracked a beer and headed out of town and would have made it past our first police check point, if Keith had been wearing his seat belt.  The hand motion to
come here, looks alot like go away, so Marty continued to crawl away from the checkpoint as the well armed traffic police got more agitated. In hindsight, continuing to drive away with confused looks on their faces might have been successful, but they did the right thing and slowly backed up to start one of the longest and serious conversations about the horrific neglect of driving without a passport ($200US) or wearing seatbelts ($150US).  Listening to Keith dance through an incredibly circular converstaion where he continued to insist, "there must be some way we can help each other out", allowed Marty time to practice a 45 minute smile.  After many offers from the Costa Rican police to remove our license plates, seize our vehicle, and point us in the direction of the nearest bus, the senior officer decided they could take the three officers out to lunch to continue the converstation.  Keith dramatically declared that my young son was waiting in the vehicle and we could not take them out to lunch, but would love to buy them lunch.  Sometime during this latino dance, Caleb noticed one of the officers approaching our vehicle and decided it might be best to jump in the front seat and place the not quite yet consumed recycling a little further under the seats.  The transaction had to take place inside the sliding side door of the police van where Keith asked if 20K colones would buy the officers a decent lunch in Golfito.  At that point it seemed that we had made three new friends in Costa Rica,  with many mucho gustos we were on our way, ticket free, to continue our journey. 

Pavones is world famous with the 2nd longest left break in the world.  We stayed at Cabinas Carol which is a great surfing hostel run by Pablo the Italian.  We met many great people, and had our only realy hostel experience in Costa Rica.  Caleb was a bit too young to participate in the "life" but he was definitely closer in age to the other residents than his parents!  Caleb and Stacey tried surfing again, and even with the bigger waves, had some success.  We were glad we tried then! While we were there (4 days), the wind came up, and the swell came up, and everyone who was anyone in surfing arrived in Pavones.  There were amazing waves and world class surfing where the rides were two minutes long, and surfers travelled out of sight around the corner.  At any one time there were easily 50 surfers out beyond the break waiting to get on the wave.  Rodrigues, a 20 year old Brazilian who is an expert surfer (we watched him do flips on his board while surfing), said it was the best surfing of his life.  We mere mortals swam in the fresh water, explored up the river, chased iguanas (they have incredible burst speed and do not move where one expects them to!) and enjoyed Keiths cooking.  Eventually we had to leave the land of perfect bodies, and head up the coast. Read more