Fishing For Coconuts

Fishing for Coconuts is about my much-anticipated arrival to the Pacific coast. After four weeks in a small mountain town in the center of Costa Rica’s mainland I was ready to be in the ocean again and surf some of the best waves of my life. Playa Dominical, along the southern coast of CR, is where I would spend the next seven weeks of my travels. I had a week off before starting a second Spanish course where I planned to meet Lucas, a German friend of mine from previous travels. Our plan was to scale the coast in a 4x4 and stop along the way for the best surf we could find. However, when we grouped up in Playa Dominical we became a little preoccupied.

From inland Turrialba I caught an early bus to the capital, San Jose, where I got on another bus to Jaco, which is in the center of Costa Rica’s coastal stretch, but still a two hour drive south to Dominical. I planned get a third bus from here or hitchhike, whatever came first. So after sticking my thumb out towards the sky for about ten minutes I hitched a ride with a crazy trucker for the last 125km stretch to Playa Dominical. He was on a high kite but after walking with all of my gear for one whole hour and now drenched in sweat, an air conditioned cap over a set of wheels felt real good. We drove along the Pacific Coast speeding fast passing any car that might slow us down straight on through the coconut plantations that grow on this side of the country. Aisles and aisles of palm trees for miles and then we saw a small community cut between the trees that goes way back, built a hundred years ago for the poor plantation workers. About a dozen houses half standing were situated around a futbol field and that was it, until we were back driving past more palms.

He dropped me off near Dominical eventually and I walked west down the dirt road serving as the center of this small beach community. Five minutes go by and while I stopped and drank a refreshing beer I could hear the surf nearby. Here I waited until Lucas and his friend, Henrick, picked me up in their 4x4 and took me to the hostel where they had been staying. Cool Vibes is the name of the place and it is located directly in front of the beach with perfectly breaking waves. I met Lucas six months before when he couchsurfed with me in San Diego, we became close friends, stayed in touch, and now we would spent a week surfing in Costa Rica together. Cheers to internal friends!

I borrowed whatever board was lying around until I could get my own which ended up being a 6-2 retro board that I fell in love with. Most days the surf was head high and the three of us were the only ones at the two-sided peak directly out front of our hostel. These were some of the best waves of my life and when we weren’t surfing we were eating, when we weren’t eating we were looking for more empty surf breaks, and when we weren’t doing that we were finding the most creative ways to preoccupy us until the surf picked up again.

One day we went to a waterfall with a natural pool at the bottom for swimming and a rope swing suspended ten feet high from a tree. We had competitions to see who could do a double back flip off of it. After completing this challenge one would gain fame and prestige, but most of us would instead acquire the humiliation and pain that is paired with the ever-frequent back flop across the surface of the water. After another morning of surf we went off-roading on many a property we weren’t supposed to be on through mud puddles and narrow winding bumpy roads to all the remotest hard-to-get-to beaches we could find. Other days we would climb up technical rock formations on the south point of the beach and from here look out across the ocean and spot point breaks that had perfect shape and no one on them. At low tide we would find out why: a shallow reef of sharp jagged rocks.

But what we liked most among our daily escapades was fishing for coconuts. In Costa Rica thousands of palms line the beaches and are loaded with ripe coconuts and each of them filled with a life giving bounty. But the difficulty, nay the challenge, lay in retrieving them. Of course you could visit a local fruit stand and have a chilled coconut cut open for you for only a buck. But Lucas and I were still suffering a damaged ego from the notorious back flops of the day before and in need of rebuilding our pride.

We liked the term “fishing for coconuts” because during our first experience we realized how similar to fishing it really is. A long pole is required and a lot of patience as well. Once the coconut has been “caught” it must be skinned, or violently cut open, and then the insides enjoyed. We took off down the beach, Lucas and I, feeling wild and indigenous. We had knives and machetes and a desperate thirst for coconuts. I spotted a long stick made from bamboo but it lay in a thick swamp with who knows what in it. I carefully balanced myself across the top of a tree stump to get closer to retrieving this tool but lost my balance when I discovered a nest of fire ants under my feet and dozens of painful stings across my feet. When I fell into the swamp I heard a sudden movement in the water, and knowing there were crocodiles all over the area, sporadically scattering about and accidentally threw myself at a barbed wire fence. Thigh, wrist, ankle, and hands were wounded but I thankfully escaped a more unforgiving enemy that still lurked in the water. But we got the stick and it would now extend our reach to about twenty-five feet. Now we could reach the bundle of coconuts on most of the trees, and after continuously nudging them we would shower ourselves in delight. Lucas and I had far too many coconuts to bring back home with us. So after drinking about five of them and then showering in five more we each loaded ourselves with four giant coconuts and headed back down the beach from where we came.

We left just too guys with injured pride, but now our party consisted of two guys, too many coconuts and a stick. No matter what bystanders on the beach thought of us, we had reassured our confidence and would soon return home to share our bounty.

Playa Dominical, Costa Rica

27 October 2013