Greeting from Jaco! Jaco which is known by locals as “The city of surf” is a coastal city in Costa Rica's Puntarenas province, located in the Central Pacific Region, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Jaco is approximately 1 and 30 mins from San Jose. Myself, George and the group packed up the mini bus first thing on Friday morning and set off on our Journey South for Jaco.
We are in staying in luxury in the centre of Jaco at the Blue Palms Hotel, fully equipped with swimming pool, air con and satellite TV, somewhat different to the tranquil Santa Teresa. Jaco is a bustling surf town with its fair share of restaurants, bars and surf shops which the group have been thoroughly enjoying after long days at the beach watching some of the worlds best surfers.
As I explained in my last blog the group are lucky enough to be in Costa Rica at the same time as the ISA World Surfing Games which is one of the biggest surfing competitions the surfing world has had yet and what a week it was been so far. With an abundance of surfing talent, blazing sunshine and crowds from all over the world to add to the excitement the group have been thoroughly enjoying the experience so far. When we arrived on Friday we quickly settled into the faster pace of the town and headed out to a local tico restaurant for Casados all round. The next day we headed down to Hermosa beach for the first day of the competition which kicked off in style. The comp drew huge crowds and the group sat in the sunshine taking everything in as some of the biggest names of surfing walked right by them board in hand. While we were in Santa Teresa I had a girls movie night with Peace, Hannah, Rachel, Manni, Clare, Noelita and Claire. In an attempt to inspire their inner surfer I showed them the girls surfing movie Glimmer, which show cases all the Roxy sponsored surfers. The girls were left amped to get in the water and push their own surfing. Now this viewing of the movie was made even more special when we arrived at the comp to see some of the biggest names of female surfing who were featured in the video competing in the comp. Today Peace and Hannah were lucky enough to have their photo taken with Sophia Mulanovich who was female world champion in 2004. Dave was also very excited to watch Jeremy Flores one of his favourite surfers from France compete and dominate in ever heat he took part in.
Along with watching the abundance of talent the group also got to meet the British team. Britin has a 4 strong team at the games. Joe Dennison and Beth Mason in the female category and Elliot Dudley and Ben Skinner in the long board category. The Brits were glad of the support and I was proud as Ed and Harry held the tall bamboo sticks with British flags during Joe and Beths heats while the girls screamed encouraging support to the girls competing in the water. Along with the Brits the group also got to meet some og the South African team which Ticket to Ride has ties with. I caught up with Ant broda who is over as the SA coach. Now all you South Africa TTRide graduates will remember Ant as he does some coaching for our groups out in South Africa and is a huge character with a wealth of surfing knowledge.
After the past few days of blazing sunshine today we decided to take some time out from the sun and let the group catch up with some sleep. So after some lie ins and chill out time throughout the day the group did some surfing of their own at the local beach in Jaco followed by a yoga class lead by George. The group unwound as George lead them through the various yoga sequences they have learnt with Linia over the past few weeks. We finished the session as the sun was going down and the sky was turning various shades of pink and red…not a bad way to end the day. But after the day has finished the night begins and the majority of the group have just headed out to make the most of Jaco's night life.
Another busy day tomorrow as we leave Jaco at 8am for the day and head to one of the South beaches for a free surf, head to the competition to watch a few heats and then back to Jaco for a surf lesson on Jaco beach with George and myself.
The longboarding heats start on Wednesday so im looking forward too seeing if any of the group feel inspired and want to take up the graceful style of surfing. For those of you who think the group are having all the fun (which they really are) you can watch the surfing action on the live feeds on the ISA website and see if you can stop us on there!!!
So over and out from Jaco, more exiting news from us towards the end of the week.
Pura Vida!
Nikki