A couple of years ago, I went on a surf trip to Costa Rica with friends. We were all dedicated to the waves – typically, we were in bed by eight and up by 4:30 to be in the ocean at first light. We shared a comfortable, air conditioned bungalow and our days quickly became routined. Get up, eat, surf, nap in hammock, surf, make dinner, go to bed.
One afternoon, when the swell was too big in the open ocean for manageable surf, my best girlfriend and hippy surf buddy, Nellyda, and I went for a walk to alleviate our boredom, realizing that we hadn’t really experienced any Tican culture because of our laser focus on surfing.
Surf town Costa Rica is like surf town anywhere in the world, so finding Tican authenticity wouldn’t be easy. Walking the one-lane dirt road that bisected the town, we passed a handmade sign that read, “Adventure Jeeps for rent.” Nellyda became excited and disappeared into an old semi-truck trailor that served as the office for the business as I surveyed the fleet: two 80s-era Suzuki Samurais and one 60s-era Toyota Land Cruiser, all painted with flat black house paint, and none having doors or windows aside from the windshield.
Nellyda, bikini clad and sweating, emerged from the trailer with a seven foot tall monster of a man who looked like a cross between Lurch from The Adam’s Family and Christopher Lloyd. She was pointing at me and yelling, “Tengo un hombre, Tengo un hombre!” I have a man. The two Samurais were on the fritz and Lurch didn’t rent the Landcruiser to women because “they can’t handle it.”
But when Lurch saw that she did indeed tengo un hombre, he handed her the keys and asked for her passport. Normally, I wouldn’t advise giving up one’s passport to anyone, but it was clear that Lurch was dug in here, and despite looking like he had been repeatedly struck by lightning his whole life, this was how he did business. No paperwork, just equity on either side of the deal.
The car was an incredible piece of junk. I could barely drive it. To start it cold, someone had to choke the carburetor with a plastic bag while the other hit the ignition. This made fuel shoot in the face of the choker. Nothing worked except for the temperature gauge, and the steering wheel had a solid 200 degrees of play in it. Let’s not even talk about the brakes or the fact that it leaked gas.
I was skeptical, but there is no stopping Nellyda when she gets fired up on something. She named our adventure jeep La Verdad because it would show us the real Costa Rica. 
We had heard that there was a mystical wave on the inside of the peninsula we were on that got good when the swell was big in the open ocean, so we went back to the bungalow to pick up our surfboards and friends. But only one of our friends wanted to go: Emily, Nellyda’s adventure buddy. The others didn’t believe the wave existed, though Nellyda insisted that whether it was or was not was irrelevant – the trip was all about experiencing something new, from the seat of La Verdad.
With no real directions other than vague ones obtained from an inebriated surfer kid, we set out in La Verdad, heading deep into the forest on a creekbed to find this wave. We crossed rivers where we saw crocodiles. We sped under monkeys. We were given Cocos Frios by some nice Ticans in a small village who made fun of our heap of a jeep.
We saw the most colorful birds I’ve ever seen. And, we found the wave! I took pictures as proof for the naysayers. What I’m constantly reminded of wherever I travel is this day; it’s one of the most vivid memories I have. Maybe because I learned a lesson, too: The truth is out there, if you’re willing to step outside of what you know, and find it.
