The Boys Are Back In Town!

March 2008; Liberia, Costa Rica. We landed in Liberia, one year later, down a man. OB, now the proud father of little Brooklyn O’Brien, couldn’t make the trip. Congratulations brother.

We opted to forego the rental truck this time around in favor of a cab service. It turned out to be a good move. We climbed into the back of our van and set out for Nosara. Our driver was kind of enough to stop multiple times for us to pick up sixers of Imperial, at one point we even found tall-boys. Having a local Tico behind the wheel shaved about thirty minutes off of our trip. We were happy to find the road to Nosara still remained unpaved.

We arrived at the Harbor Reef and headed straight to the bar. One of our waitress friends was working and was ecstatic to see us. She had kept in touch briefly through email but we had not spoken to her in quite some time. She informed us that her friend, the other waitress we had spent a lot of time with, had moved to San Jose to finish her degree. Good for her.

While at the bar, we overheard a conversation in which the owner’s son was describing our favorite spot in Nosara. It went something like this…

“Blew Dog’s used to be the place to go. Now it’s called Kaya Sol and some yoga dude plays the bongos all night.”

We headed off to our room to unload our shit and immediately noticed a difference. Our room had satellite TV and wireless internet. Nosara was changing.

We woke up the next morning and walked across the street, down the trail, past the graveyard and onto Playa Guiones. The same beach that was deserted the year before was now littered with people. Still vacant compared to Long Island beach standards, but it was apparent that word of Nosara had leaked out to more than just the surf community.

After dinner we decided to go check out Blew Dog’s for ourselves. Sure enough, the conversation we had overheard was true. The crowd was different. There was no smoking allowed inside, despite the fact that there were no walls. Our favorite shot, Man’s Club*, was MIA. A dude playing the bongos certainly had replaced the DJ; in fact, it was our waitress friend’s husband. The badass American fisherman we had met a year earlier was now rocking a weird Mohawk and banging away on his fucking bongos.

Luckily, Wille was still there. We said our hellos and he pretended to remember who we were. We eventually found out that he actually had no idea, until his friend showed up and reminded him that we were the idiots who pissed on her quad 12 months ago. I am pretty sure he loves us for that. A friend of hers or not, everyone must have wanted to piss on her quad at one time or another.

Our late-night bonfire had a strangely different twist to it this time around. Yoga had taken over the beach after sunset. During one nights trek from Blew Dog's down the beach to the Harbor Reef, we stumbled upon one hell of a bonfire. Sprite, walking pretty far ahead of STB and myself, had decided to join the party. As we began to realize what was transpiring in front of us, we almost pissed our pants. There was Sprite, standing around the fire sticking out like an Asian on a Basketball team. Sprite, the Yao Ming of that scene, was the only one with any type of clothing on. Welcome to Yogatown.

In Sprite’s words the rest of the trip went something like this; Surf, Eat, Nap, Bodysurf, Ring Game, Eat, Nap, Surf, Sunset Beers, Eat, Rum, Bonfire Beers, Bed.

Nosara is changing. Yoga is quickly taking over. Larger buildings are under construction. Prices are skyrocketing. The beach is getting dirty. The locals** are becoming douche bags. And who knows what will happen if that road gets paved.

The second time around was our Made, a great movie no doubt, but don't try to compare it to Swingers. It is very likely that in 2007, we caught Playa Guiones in her prime.


* Morgan and the 17-year-olds introduced us to Man’s Club at Blew Dog’s in 2007. Take a bottle of Tequila, pour some out (preferably into your mouth) and fill the remaining space in the bottle with habanero peppers. Then pour shots for your friends (or unsuspecting Americans at a bar in Central America), keep a straight face, and shoot them. Welcome to the Man’s Club. Sprite has a great story about his attempt to make Man’s Club upon our return from Costa Rica. Maybe he will post it on his blog, http://beautifullcontrast.blogspot.com.

** By locals I do not at all mean Ticos, Ticas or Costa Ricans. I am referring to the Americans and Europeans who have lived there for 2 months off of Mommy and Daddy’s money and somehow feel that it is their land.