Playa Avellanas - Day 8 - The REAL Costa Rica

It's funny, everyone here hates Tamarindo and embraces the more laid back friendly vibe here in Avellanas.  We really like it here :)  We are paying $400 for a room with private bathroom and shared kitchen.  The owner, Diego got in a motorcycle accident 2 days before we got here and he broke his arm and scraped up his whole leg and foot.  It's really difficult for him because he is the only one running his hotel/restaurant, but now he can't cook.  He really wants to make some authentic Italian food for us but he says maybe in two weeks he will be able to.  He is super friendly and quite a talker. 

The walk to the beach is a short 50 meters on a dirt road and then through a marshy area that we cross on a boardwalk, which is literally a board-walk.  About 6 feet above the mud is the board-walk, like a deck four feet wide with 1.5 foot wide boards. It is surrounded by some kind of trees.  If you go to the Las Olas Avellanas website you will see what I mean, and where I am sitting right now (at the bar). 

There is one little store about 8 minutes walk down the dirt road from where we are staying, but we pretty much bought them out yesterday with two basket fulls of food...well, not quite, but they really only have bare bones necessities like beans, rice, eggs, spaghetti, sausage, pineapple, avocado, and beer.  It works for us though cuz that's what we've been eating for the last month anyway.  Hopefully they will get some bananas in cuz that's usually what we have for breakfast before surfing.  In Tamarindo bananas were 40 colones apiece which means about 10 cents apiece!  For the most flavorful fresh bananas!

Okay, we'll let you know how our first week goes here.  We'll check in next week.


That email was a continuation from last week that I wrote, but didn't send in time before the wind cut out our internet connection.  So, we have been here for one week now which has flown by, but also seems like a week.  Time here is funny that way.  It probably would seem faster if we were only here for a week or two, but because we have a month here we can really settle in and not feel like our time is rushed.  We just got back from our second surf session of the day and it is only 1pm.  We went super early this morning because we finally got a swell after a few days of very small waves.  Because of the swell people come from all around, but luckily, when we get out early, we can beat a lot of the crowd.
The water is just a bit cooler than Santa Teresa, but still warm and full of life.  There are lots and lots and lots of fish here.  Its really cool when the sun hits the wave just right and walls up in front of you, you can see schools of fish in the wave.  There are also crabs and jelly fish here.  Ben got a bad sting from a jelly fish on his neck and arm, it looks like welts.  Whenever I get stung it never leaves any marks (knock on wood :) Although, I do get stung almost every time I go out. 
The waves are much different here.  They break much closer to shore which takes some special care.  We catch the waves in water deeper than we can touch, but ride them into only a couple feet of water.  However, its different at the river mouth where its a bit deeper over rocks instead of sand and the wave is more like a bowl (think sewer's in Pleasure Point).  Ben caught some of the best waves of our trip there this afternoon.  It is an advanced surf spot because there is a rock submerged right by the main take off zone, but when you know where it is, like we do, we just sit to the outside and don't get all crazy going over it. 
Diego, the Italian who owns the place where we are staying has an infection in his foot now and it is very yellown where the scrape is and very swollen.  He went back to the doctor two days ago and got some antibiotics.  Hopefully that will help.  I can't imagine having to take care of myself and a business in the state he is in.  Luckily, he has a woman who helps him and does all the cleaning. 
The weather here is really wonderful.  Because it is a dryer climate there isn't much humidity at all so it doesn't feel as hot as Santa Teresa.  Also, the vibe is way mellow here.  Everyone is very down to earth and very friendly.  This is a very small place and we run into the same few people every day which is kind of fun.  There's this one guy who is a surfer from Texas.  We say he looks just like a grown up, tan, surfer version of Adam.  It's pretty amazing.  
Some think Avellanas is the next place to go up in value (land that is) It already is.  Diego, bought the land here 12 years ago for pennies, and now an investor is offering $300,000 but he says he's holding out for $500,000.  Almost all of the land around here is for sale.  Just for fun we are going to see how much the land is going for.  I wouldn't want to live here year round, but it would be a fun yearly trip!  Diego is lucky because when he bought the land he put down 10% with a stipulation that he could drill for water and if he found water he would pay the rest and if he didn't he could walk away foregoing the 10%.  Lucky for him he found water and has a well with fresh drinking water.  He says students from the University come every year and test the water and it has always been pure enough to drink.  He says it always comes back with A+ rating.  We have been drinking it for a week now.  We stopped taking our mulit vitamin just to be sure we don't get too many minerals.  It saves us a lot of money to be able to drink and cook with the well water.  We keep talking about how we spent half our budget in Santa Teresa, but we are definately making up for it here.  We love this place!

Here are some pictures we took with our new camera we bought just outside of Tamarindo.  It was one of two options.  It was $100 for a 10.1 megapixel, no zoom, no focus, pretty crappy camera.  The thing I am most disappointed about it is that it doesn't take sunset pictures like our other one.  That one had a sun setting and would focus on the sun, this one doesn't know what to do with sun pictures so the color gets all off.  (It doen'st focus which is really weird, but it takes pictures instantly because it doesn't focus first.) Oh well, at least it will record the memories...  Hope you enjoy!

Love,
Tracey

http://www.avellanassurfphotos.com/details.php?gid=194&pid=6940

follow this link to see a picture of me surfing yesterday!  There is a guy who takes pictures every day out there!

 

The trail to the beach, boardwalk through the mangroves.

 

Sunset in Avellanas from Lola's.

 

This is Lola's, such a cool hang out spot to watch the sunset.  The food is super expensive, and the beers are $3 apiece, but these wooden chairs are the best.  The sunset pictures are taken from here.

 

Here's Ben running to the water right after a bird pooped on his chest!  There were tons and tons of birds in the palm trees over head. Hah!

Check back in a week for another update from this peaceful haven called Avellanas!