dbtex
May 26, 2004, 4:17 AM
Post #1 of 1
(626 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Oct 15, 2003
Posts: 45
|
Trip report- Costa Rica. Here is the set up. My wife is from Nicaragua, and my Father-in-law is currently living in Costa Rica. Well after 20 some odd years of being single, he up and decides to get remarried (actually, a very good thing…she is super nice, a great fit!). Anyway, we were going to take the whole family down to Costa Rica for nine days, so I’m remembering all of the rock I had seen from my last trip there in my pre-climbing days. I’m thinking to myself sure let’s go! I get on line searched the RC.com databases, find a few climbers in CR (3 that I felt comfortable contacting), saw the gym in San Jose (Mundo Aventura- http://www.maventura.com ), and figured I was livin' large. I fired off some emails; two of the climbers were going to be available to take me to the local crags and sent me their cell phone numbers. The third had gone to the other side of the world on a trip. No worries, two out of three was great. I’ll meet them at the gym, do the sniff test, make sure they are o.k. and then off to the rocks. My wife, not a climber and very family oriented, was being real cool about the whole thing. I had two hall passes (could set up two 'day climbs')! All I had to do was dodge a couple of parties and be at the wedding, and she was good with it. Well, we make it down there on a Friday evening. Before we get to my Father-in-laws, I am on the phone trying to get in touch with the locals. Made contact with one (and left a message for the other), set up a meet for the following Tuesday. O.k., kinda far away, but that will give me the chance to head to the beach for a few days with my family, and the brothers-in-law with their significant others, etc... The beach was outstanding! We went to the Northwest part of the country, Guanacaste, to Playa Hermosa, the town of Brasilitos, Playa Flamingo, and Playa Conchal (by far the best beach of the three). It was fantastic! We took the kids horseback riding, where we got to run the horses quite a bit. The liability lawyers hadn’t made it there yet. The seafood was terrific, folks were very nice, flora and fauna were amazing. And while I was taking it all in, having a great time, I’m thinking two more days, then one more day, to get back and go climbing. I was ready. One the way back to San Jose, again I’m on the phone. I firm up the one contact to meet at the gym. Again I leave another message for the second. Oh well, even if I don’t get him I still have the one contact, and he sounds like he’s got the time to climb. Then the big night, whooo hooo, I am off to the gym. I got the address out of the San Jose phone book, and my Father-in-law knows exactly where it was, uh, is, o.k. should have been. The address in the phone book was off by a couple of blocks. I call the contact, he was at the gym, and he directed us to the big kayak out front. They didn’t even have the chance to slow the car down before I was out and said, “Later!” I go inside and talk to the lady at the counter. I told her who I was looking for and that I was from out of town, like that wasn’t obvious, and she said not to worry about the fees. Go on in, the guy was inside. Oh this was too easy; this deal is too good to be true. Well you know what they say. If it seems too good to be true… He was there all right. A nice guy, friendly, but had a slight problem. The servers at his work went down and his partner was on the way to the office but didn’t have a key. So he had to go and would try to be back later. If not we’ll hit the crag the next day. No worries I said, I’ll hang out and climb with the others at the gym. There were about eight to twelve others there at the time. The gym was more like a nice garage set up with a mixture of inclined, vertical, and overhanging faces http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos.php?Action=Show&PhotoID=30591 There was a cave section where most of the folks had congregated http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos.php?Action=Show&PhotoID=30592 and man those guys were crankin pretty hard. It was fun to climb and watch. Anyhow, I’m waiting and the guy doesn’t make it back. O.k., I’m disappointed I didn’t get to climb with him, but I asked the others about him and they say he’s a good climber, safe, so I’m content with that. Not to mention I got to climb for about three hours. The world is always a better place for me after that. Well the story just gets worse from here so I’ll paraphrase, computer problems persisted, he couldn’t climb at all the rest of the time I was there. Guy number two and I finally make contact on Saturday, read “day before I leave” and he says let’s go climb on Sunday everyone climbs on Sunday. Huh?! That was the first I had heard this beta. Oh, and speaking of beta, when I went back on RC.com Friday night, determined to get directions on how to get to some of the local climbing spots- on the off chance that I might meet someone climbing that would let me work in with them- I found the directions to be general at best for the ones that I looked at going. Whah! Whah! I know. So, my Costa Rican climbing adventure consisted of a two to three hour soiree in the gym, which by the way is a nice place to meet, climb, and get info on local climbing. Lessons learned: 1. Next time, I will try to travel with a climbing partner who is as interested in climbing as I am. 2. If I can not go with a climbing partner, then next time I will use the database and contact as many as I can, to increase my chance of a hit for a partner. 3. And next time I will be much more proactive about getting directions from folks at the gym, or wherever the climbers are playing in town, to the rock locations. Flat and simple, because of previously successful climbing trip just ‘winging-it’, I failed to plan out all that I needed to for a successful climbing trip. My fault…I get the Duh Award. The positive spin, for indeed there is one, my family and I had a wonderful trip! And, I got a new step mom out of the deal!
|