The local busses in Costa Rica are generally newer and more organised than any others in Central America, making travelling around the country pretty easy. There was one route though that every one advised that we take a private shuttle for, heading down the Nicoya Penninsula from Tamarindo to Mal Pais/Santa Teresa. Basically there are a few segments of road that are so poor that busses either pass once a day or not at all and being rainy season it would be even worse. The $50 per person price tag pretty much forced our hand, no way we were paying that! So we set off at 6am with two French/Canadian girls in tow, in the hope that all the busses would connect. Tamarindo to Santa Cruz, no problem. Santa Cruz to Nicoya, perfect. Nicoya to Playa Naranjo, not bad. The next section though from Playa Naranjo to Paquera had no public busses so we were forced to share an overpriced 4x4 taxi. We arrived at Paquera at about 12.30 and had a bit of confusion with our idiot taxi driver. Although quoting $30 US he wouldn't accept US and insisted on Colones, during the confusion our bus (one of one two that day) zoomed past. Realising what he had just caused the taxi driver skulked away with only about $20 of mixed currency. We were then forced to wait for four hours in a little tin bus shelter with a host of drunk locals coming over to see the gringos! One guy (Junior) actually turned out to be quite entertaining, returning on several occasions with different family members and gifts for the girls. The French/Canadian girl's fuses were a little shorter than our polite British ones and they ended up in a tri-lingual slanging match with one guy. Eventually our next bus turned up and we got from Paquera to Cobano very quickly and just in time to catch out fifth and final bus from Cobano to Santa Teresa, completing our mammoth 12 hour journey to cover a distance of only 200km which if we had paid the $50 would only have taken 4! Still we saved $35 each and gained a couple of stories along the way! Success!

The towns of Mal Pais, Playa del Carmen and Santa Teresa are often referred to simply as Mal Pais as one town has merged into the next over the years. The whole area is subjected to the same Pacific waves as further north in Tamarindo but (probably due to is access issues) has managed to retain its small surf town charm. A few people had recommended Mal Pais for its beautiful beach, voted top ten in the world! Sadly we didn't have the weather and actually had the first day in nearly three months where rain stopped play. Can't complain, I guess.

One day I decided to hire a surfboard for a few hours which had mixed success. I know a bad craftsman always blames his tools but my first board was rubbish and too small so I had to change. I'm sure if I was a better surfer then it would have been fine, but I'm not so I needed a new one! The next one was a lot better but still smaller than the one I had learned on only a few days earlier so it was like starting again. The surf was pretty hard too, with three or four breaks at once rather than one making getting out very hard. Eventually I managed to stand up a few times and ride into the beach but all in all a pretty unsuccessful session. Lessons learned... Surfing is hard, more instruction needed and use the biggest board they have!