Playa Guiones

After escaping Semana Santa craziness at Avellanas, we headed south to Playa Guiones where there is said to be Costa Rica's best beach break. We drove around a a bit and found a great campspot and parked the truck for what turned out to be about a week; we have showers and clean bathrooms and even power to run all of our geeky electronics!

Guiones is near Nosara and seems to be a popular spot for well heeled families from the states to come and stay; as most of the restaurants around are rather expensive and some have No Dogs signs posted; just like the states! In those spots Camp has to sit on the sidelines; watching and waiting...

We generally wake up and have breakfast, go out for a surf, come back and eat pancakes and a few sandwiches, then head over to this air conditioned coffee shop to play with the interweb. Camp is allowed in here and basks in the cool air on a cold tile floor...

Then we go back to the truck and sweat like fatties until it's time to go out for a long afternoon-evening surf. The sweat has been pouring off of us; and a thermometer placed in Alex's tent read over 120 one day. Every morning I have been forced out of my tent by a searing, intense heat. Even worse, my tent has become a toilet for a whole herd of monkeys, who then head over to the trees above Alex's tent to have raging parties all night. Then by midday the ground is so hot that we have to run down this path to the beach so as not to burn the soles of our feet.

The waves were kick ass when we showed up and have been getting smaller and smaller as time passes, but it's been good almost all the time. The paddle out is normally a huge drag. There are waves and waves and waves; one bigger day I counted 45 duck dives before I was in the lineup; completely shelled and unable to paddle for a piece.

The good thing about this heinous paddle out is that it keeps a number of people stuck on the inside, unable to get out to the good waves. This doesn't mean it wasn't crowded at times; but there wasn't a load of beginners on longboards out there which was nice. The waves averaged around 6 feet with 8-10 foot sets when it was at it's best. We're told we came at a great time and that it's not usually as big out there; and though we (everyone) got thoroughly abused by big sets just out of reach, we had an awesome time surfing here.
Our friends from Chicago were staying at a hostel near here, so by night we sampled the different bars and restaurants and met people form Virginia, South carolina, New York, OAKTOWN CA, and Idaho.
Every night there was some sort of live music or open mic kind of deal, and there was a surprising amount of people out every night. We never stayed out too late to get up and surf early, but a good time was had by all...
Enjoying lazy days down here...

Onward...
GB