March 9th


My schedule indicates a visit to Posa Azul in the morning and a regular (meaning 'not beginner') surf lesson in the afternoon - both with J-2 as instructor and "Rob + 1" as additional students. I feel kinda like I passed my tadpole swim test or something!

When I arrive at the GI office, I recognize the other students as a couple I noticed around town yesterday. Hard to miss because he has a ridiculously swollen ankle and is hobbling around on homemade crutches while she, exceedingly blond and fair, is burned as pink as a Rimmel retro lipstick shade. I introduce myself and ask what happened. Apparently in his beginner lesson, Rob stepped back off the board thinking he had about 2 feet of clearance before hitting bottom. He only had about an inch and came down with his full weight. His wife, Venetia, had clearly just spent too much time on the beach without adequate sunscreen.

Anyway, the 4 of us jump into the GI van. Before we head out of Dominical though, we stop at the pharmacy to see the on-call doctor who confirms that Rob's ankle is severely sprained and not fractured. We travel another 10 metres before stopping at Delicias - a bakery cafe with amazing breakfasts. It would become my Helen's and Starbuck's combined while I was down here. J-2's best friend works here and is quite adamant that I shouldn't use my breakfast ticket for only coffee and a fruit plate. It's worth 5,000 colones, which could easily buy breakfast for 3 of us, and she doesn't feel right about letting me waste it. The fact is, if she didn't say anything, she could have submitted an inflated receipt to GI and scooped the balance for herself. We agree that we'll stop by on our way back to top up with more food and coffee. This was not the first time I encountered this remarkable honesty. In fact, every server in every other restaurant in town (with the exception of the Tu Lu) did the same thing. If my breakfast/lunch/dinner didn't use the full amount, they would offer to tag on something else. I usually just had them add the drinks or appetizers of my tablemates. The guy at Tu Lu took the ticket and a tip. Once I realized it and stopped using my tickets for my 3000 colone breakfasts there, he would always ask, "Don't you want to use your GI meal ticket?". Chya right.
All the chatting about meal tickets has grabbed Rob's attention and he wants to know why I have meal tickets and they don't. Both his wife and I explain they're part of a particular package but he is ready to march back to the GI office and demand his meal vouchers. I get the idea that he doesn't like anyone getting something he's not.

Once we got our stuff (on Tico time) we head along the ocean highway for about a kilometre before turning into a dirt road with a guard stand. J-2 waves at the guard as we pass a soccer field with a practice going on and enter a small community. This is called Dominicalito (a town and beach) and J-2 lives here with his wife and 6-month-old daughter, Ciara. After driving through a shallow stream, J-2 stops at their house and brings Ciara out to the van. She is incredibly sweet natured and has no problem being plopped in my lap! She is fascinated by me and all I can think is how this poor little thing is stuck to a sweaty stranger! (I was like a sprinkler for the first two days until I got used to the heat).

J-2’s wife cares for another little girl during the day. I wish I’d gotten a photo of her but she was behind their security fence and I didn’t want to impose. She's about 3 and walking around carrying a purse with 7 thick bangles on her little arm – basically bangled from wrist to armpit. I saw her a couple of times after that and it was always the same, playing the lady. Omg, she was so cute! I tell J-2 I can’t believe he’s old enough to have a baby but he says he’s 19 (and I can’t say anything because I was only a few months older when I had Ryan).

We proceed up the road for about 500m and we’re at Posa Azul (Blue Waterfall). It’s beautiful and the freshwater pool at the bottom is so cool after the 85 degree saltwater of the ocean!

J-2 climbs up and swings off the rope while I snap photos from the water. Rob and Venetia just hang out on shore. They don’t seem too impressed. Suddenly, there’s an American voice out of the shadows on shore. Some guy has been sitting there all along but since he’s very tanned and wearing a brown speedo, we didn’t notice him. He’s an ex-pat from Boston who has retired here and is farming... something. As he comes closer, it’s obvious he’s recently smoked a joint or possibly many joints. Surprisingly, he’s very chatty and follows me as I swim all around the pool talking about his life here. I wish I could say it was interesting but it wasn’t. I mean, he was stoned and mostly just kept repeating himself.

Rob and Venetia aren’t enjoying the pool as much as we are so J-2 and I decide to do a tour on our own after the 12:30 surf lesson.


The surf lesson went well and I'm impressed that Rob still goes out and tries to get up on his gimpy ankle. Venetia and I are doing really well and getting up on almost every wave which doesn't improve Rob's mood since he's (understandably) unable to stay upright.