About

I'm an expat Californian who is obsessed with traveling to strange and exotic destinations in the former Communist Bloc. I also like tacos, beer, surfing, trapshooting, and the geopolitics of oil. I currently live in Arlington, Virginia and work in Washington, DC. Read more about me here, check out my photo album, or send me an e-mail.

    follow me on Twitter

    Costa Rica photos

    Photos from my week at Witch’s Rock Surf Camp in Playa Tamarindo, Costa Rica, with daytrips to the Arenal Volcano and Playa Avellana.

    If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

    Back to Costa Rica

    After spending nine days in SoCal, I’m off to Costa Rica for another a week of surf, beer, and nachos at Witch’s Rock Surf Camp. More on that trip (and North Korea, China, Central Europe, and London) when I return. In the meantime, I’ll be posting photos from Costa Rica on my Twitter [...]

    Costa Rica: I’m here to surf, not overthrow your government

    I didn’t have much to write about regarding my April trip to Costa Rica because it basically consisted of surfing, eating, and drinking. In fact, the only semi-funny thing that happened to me while in Costa Rica occurred when my flight landed at the Liberia airport.
    The Costa Rican government requires that visitors fill out [...]

    Costa Rica: Buena Vista Lodge

    In addition to the zip line tour, we partook in a few other activities while at the Buena Vista Lodge.

    We went horseback riding. This is my horse. He was kind of a bully and would bite the other horses in our group.

    They made us wear these ridiculous helmets. Where I grew up, [...]

    Costa Rica: Zip Line Canopy Tour

    One of the most popular tourist activities in Costa Rica is the canopy tour, which entails clipping a carabiner to a steel cable that has been strung between two platforms and traveling to the next platform via this steel cable. We did the zip line at the Buena Vista Lodge, which had eleven platforms [...]

    Costa Rica: Surf Trip to Playa Avellanas

    On Friday, our last full day in Costa Rica, we grabbed our surf gear, hopped on the Witch’s Rock Surf Camp bus at 6am and headed to Playa Avellanas, a few miles south of Tamarindo. Here are a few photos from that trip.

    If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS [...]

    Costa Rica: Witch’s Rock Surf Camp

    So, back to my Costa Rica trip, which I returned from over a month ago.
    We stayed at Witch’s Rock Surf Camp, a beachfront hotel run by surfers, for surfers. WRSC was founded by Joe Walsh, a Californian who decided to move to Costa Rica following his graduation from UCSD. He bought an old school [...]

    Costa Rica: Exploring the Tamarindo River

    One morning, rather than sitting around drinking cheap beer and waiting for the surf to roll in, we hired this dude to take six of us on a real life jungle cruise of the Tamarindo River (Disneyland is for amateurs).

    Where the river meets the ocean

    He took us through some very narrow and shallow areas of [...]

    Costa Rica: Pura Vida

    A few shots of surfers enjoying an afternoon/evening session at Playa Tamarindo.

    Carlos, a WRSC instructor

    I love this dog. He belonged to one of the WRSC instructors and whenever his owner went out to surf he would sit on the beach and wait for him to come in.

    If you enjoyed this post, make sure you [...]

    Costa Rica: The food. Oh, the food.

    As a warning, you probably shouldn’t view this post if you are extremely hungry due to all the gratuitous food photos.
    I can’t recall having a single bad meal in Costa Rica. We ate a lot of meat, seafood, plantains, guacamole, rice and beans (I never thought of rice and beans as a breakfast dish, [...]