Waves rolled in from thousands of miles away — deep, cobalt wedges rising in the shallows, thin crests held in place by a stiff offshore breeze. The air smelled like salt. The only sound was tumbling whitewater and the whine of a dozen two-stroke tuk-tuks racing along dirt roads in town.
It was 7 a.m. in Nosara, Costa Rica. The sun hung low behind a raft of surfers looking for a wave. Others hid from the sun beneath driftwood shelters built along the beach. I did what any intermediate surfer would — paddled well clear of the group to a surf break just for me. It didn’t take long. I was in the water for less than 10 minutes when a swell reared up behind me and practically lifted me onto its face. Hands down, chest up, jump into position, and there I was: present in the fantasy I had envisioned for months, carving a bottom turn and gliding back up to the lip to race down the line.
Photography by Sara Fox
Idyllic surf sessions like this have become a thing of the past in most surf towns. The halcyon days of unlimited waves and only a handful of surfers in the lineup have been overrun by mass tourism and development from California to Hawaii to the Maldives. In Nosara, though, officially one of the most consistent breaks in the world with 330 rideable days a year, everyday sidewalkers like me can experience the freedom and quietude of a 1960s surf safari all year long.
There are a few factors that make Nosara’s enticing beach, Playa Guiones, one of the few places that surfers of any caliber can catch a wave. The beach is four miles long and waves break in dozens of locations — consistent rights, lefts, overhead barrels and soft combers. After surfing California, Fiji, Mexico and the busy breaks along the Rockaways in New York City, crowds (and resulting aggression) had pushed me away from the sport. My first trip to Nosara years ago reintroduced it, and I have been going back there ever since.
Nosara’s town of Guiones, set on the west coast of the Nicoya Peninsula, is one of the oldest expat communities in Costa Rica. Surfers first came here in the 1960s after Bruce Brown’s iconic film Endless Summer II featured breaks in Tamarindo, two hours north. The town was well on its way to large-scale development, including two high-rises built yards from the beach. Then John Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune and co-founder of Buzzfeed, met his wife in 2002 in Nosara, and the couple launched a campaign to protect it.
Within a few short years, the high-rises were razed and a park was established to protect the beach and surrounding jungle. The couple then renovated the upscale Harmony Hotel with interior designer Fernando Santangelo (the creative behind the revamp of Los Angeles’ famed Chateau Marmont) to encourage style-conscious travelers and to curtail the urge to build McHotels for the masses. For now, their plan appears to have worked. Even though Nosara was officially deemed the fastest-growing surf town in the world back in 2017, it hasn’t lost its beach bum appeal — and there are plenty of waves for all.
After my session on the waves, I passed a few surf lessons prepping students on the beach and followed a young man driving his grandmother on a tiny motorcycle to one of my favorite lunch spots, Rosi’s Soda Tica. The fish casado with rice and beans, sweet fried plantains and a papaya smoothie were just as I remembered, as was the oat milk cappuccino at The Bungalow and chilled pipa (green coconut) from a man selling them out of the back of his truck.
I passed tiny circles of teak chairs and tables at the Gilded Iguana Surf Club, where clients of the neighboring hotel can pick up freshly waxed boards any time of day. (We opted to borrow from Juan Surfos across the street, who, for the past 20 years, has been renting boards for around $100 a week.) After we spent 10 minutes in the Mini Super Delicias market, our rental house was stocked with fresh ground sausage, imported pasta, locally made nacho chips, fresh vegetables, mixed organic lettuce, and rum.
Midweek, we took a night off and visited the Beach Break, a beautifully renovated restaurant owned by hotelier Steve Jacobus. He moved to Nosara with his wife and three children 20 years prior. “We put the kids in school in the pueblita (small town), then ended up moving there because it was so fun,” he says. Jacobus then renovated their mountain home into one of the leading boutique hotels in the region. We visited one night and watched the moon and Venus rise above Playa Guiones from a row of suspended hammocks — while waiters brought us elaborate cocktails and cuisine drawn from the cookbooks of Caribbean abuelas (grandmothers). “The thing about life in Nosara is that every day feels like Saturday,” Jacobus says.
Surfing comes back like riding a bike, and after three days and at least three dozen amazing rides, my upper body needed a break. The folks at locally owned Fishing Nosara had taken our friends on an incredible horseback ride through the mountains a few days before, so we booked a kayak trip in the mangroves. We paddled past six-foot crocodiles all morning (“Babies!” our guide chirped) to a dark brown volcanic beach where olive ridley sea turtles lay their eggs. Later that afternoon, we took the cart to an organic farmer’s market and a local fish market. That night, we sat under the rancho by our private pool and ate mahi-mahi, grilled pineapple and plantains as howler monkeys sang and the waxing moon lit up the towering kapok trees.
Our group was so blown away by the blend of wild terrain, great restaurants, perfect waves and the laid-back vibe that we extended our vacation an extra three days. I surfed every one of those days, knowing it would likely be my last for a while, and caught some of the best waves of the week.
The morning the shuttle picked us up, I’d been in the water for two hours. Silver clouds moved through the sky as set after set of head-high waves rolled in. I caught a dozen of those waves that a local photographer happened to capture and bought a few of the prints. I now live by those images — even as I write this story — already counting the days until we return.
