Relaxing
Pavones style
By Cassady Jeremias
On-line Forty-Niner
 Phone
lines and asphalt disappear long before
this tiny oasis nestled between jungle foliage
and the Golfo Dulce. Few visitors outside
the hard core surfing crowd have experienced
the remote and unspoiled tiny excuse for
a town called Pavones, Costa Rica.
It
is here that surfers from all over come
to surf what they call “the longest left
in the world”. The town is shared by ticos,
happy to play soccer or share a story over
a cerveza, seasonal surfers from Brazil,
Australia and the United States, and a few
sun baked American expatriates.
After
sleeping through the night in sweltering
heat, a good way to wake up is to walk down
to the ocean and dive in, provided you do
not mind the ladies upstream washing their
clothes.
The
water temperature of the gulf is so warm
that it is hardly refreshing to humans,
but sea turtles and jellyfish that will
swim right up to you and find it just right.
In the humid wet season, locals say it never
dries out. In the jungle heat of the dry
season, clothes need to be washed daily,
as sweat penetrates every thread.
Everything
in Pavones is walking distance, and the
cantina is the local hot spot to mingle.
With a nightly census of about twenty, and
more on disco night when everyone comes
out to meet the discomobile that drives
in from San Jose, locals, their children,
dogs and beach bums can be found at the
bar around the clock.
Veteran
surfers say Pavones is what Hawaii was like
50 years ago, rustic and extraordinary.
Three-foot iguanas meander through the brush
along with the locals, and live chickens
are bought and sold as often as beer.
Rooms
rent above the Cantina for about $8 a night,
and there are plenty more around town if
you ask at the bar. A few stores in town
offer the basics — beans, rice, and fruit.
Sticky sweets are available at the panaderia
almost as early as sunrise.
Dona
Dora’s restaurant is a quaint two-story
home with picnic tables on the deck. With
no menu or advertising, newcomers might
have a hard time finding it without the
smell of arroz con pollo or fresh fish luring
them in.
Sophia,
a scruffy old sea dog with a tattered blue
rope tied loosely around her neck, is known
well at the cantina and local hangouts.
Somehow every night after chasing horses
on the beach and surfers in the ocean she
finds her way home, never to be bothered
with a fence or a leash.
Those
who stay in Pavones for any length of time
will soon realize that they too can do without
a leash. Even my watch seemed a bit extravagant
after only a couple of days, and for the
first time since childhood my waking hours
depended only upon the sun rising and setting.
You
can find Pavones by flying into San Jose,
and plane hopping to Golfito. Taxis are
available from there, and racing down the
bumpy dirt road is a great way to shake
off any stress left over from the city.
Busses are also available from the capital.
The long windy road through the mountains
and jungle takes about nine hours to Neily,
then it’s just a short ride by taxi.
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