Travel during Rainy Season - CR

Pssh you don't know what you're talking about. Ever been there?
Hardly a surfer community. High end shops that maybe only maybe Slater could afford. Art galleries galore. Fine French restaurants, $5000 a night hotels.
I spent alot of time in and around Biarritz but could never afford to stay there.

 

Pocket change.....
So what if there are "high end shops", even better for my wife.
But high rents and hotel charges keeps scummy surfers away. That is the definition of "paradise".
Biarritz, btw, is our next year trip, not to surf, but to look up my wives genealogy as her moms family are from that area.
Bring a board? Naw, buy one and give it away to some millionaire kid when we come back. lol

 

CR is low/no risk for malaria: http://www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk/destinations/central-america/costa-rica/costa-rica-malaria-map.aspx

 

per CDC, no risk :https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/travelers/country_table/c.html

 

So it's not a surfer community? Like you said?
Haha. BTW Biarritz itself has pretty mediocre surf. Just to the north and south is where the good waves are.
It's just a nice place to stay with the wife. But located where you can kill two birds with one stone minus the mooslem invasion.

 

Having "no risk" or "low risk" is not equivalent to having no presence. CR has malaria, rainy areas especially.
CDC is always a pretty good source, but they are known to make mistakes as well. For example, we were all going to die from Ebola. I am still here. We were all going to have shrunken heads from zika. Mine is fine; is yours pea sized??

 

last reported case was 2012

 

Biarritz has as many surfers as Deal NJ. Just as many assholes as well.
Beach communities all have "surfers". It is "in", in case you had not noticed.
I was watching a muscle car repair show filmed in Kentucky. Lining the rear of the shop was a row of surfboards standing up as a "cool" back ground. Kentucky.
Who doesn't surf anymore. It is no longer "cool". Only morons surf.

 

Not all cases are reported, especially in 3rd world countries. Most cases are NOT reported.

As an edit, CR has also had about 6-7 crocodile attacks in the last year to 18 months.. Recently only one those cases has been reported, suppressed by government.
If they do not report crock attacks, do you honestly believe CR government will report malaria cases?? Both are devastating to eco-tourism. What does CR survive on?? Oh...eco-tourism!! Go figure....

 

Still, it is a very small risk, and not worth taking anti-malarial meds for, which have many side effects. Of far greater concern is getting bonked in the head by your board, or getting run over by another surfer, or snake bite, or car accident, or cut then infection leading to sepsis, or poisonous spider bite, or...best to just stay home.

 

Lots of luxe shops, sure, but you get that in Santa Barbara, too. I'd say that there is a similar surfing community in SB & in Biarritz, both.

Lotta guys in the water when Biarritz gets decent swell. That place can handle pretty big swell from what I've seen there.

Also, there are so many decent breaks up & down that Basque coastline. Ask Tom Curren. He made Anglet, France his home (which is literally next to Biarritz). Curren lived in the Basque country for many years, and he surfed all those good breaks.

 

Been to both Nica and Costa same time in November.
Great weather and no crowds, mostly rained at night.
Go before the waves go flat for those area's, can be very small in December until March.

 

+1 to CR in November. Far less gringos in the ocean over T'day holiday, btw.

 

Pavones, like trev said, is a south swell spot, NZ swells in June and July light it up. November? Risking getting skunked after a long haul. May want to rethink either the timing, or the location.

 

theres a BIG difference between a quebecois and a euroFrenchy. Your wife may hate the euro trip if she hasnt visited her family there before.

Also malaria is only prevalent on the Caribbean coast of C.R. south of Puerto Limon. Theoretically it COULD exist anywhere mosquitoes can transfer it, but I wouldn't bank on it on the Pacific Side due to the lack of reported cases and locals that say it isn't there anymore. Maybe, maybe in that town north of pavones named after mosquitos but i doubt it.

Only really gotta worry about the chicamgama whatever and the dengue. theres over 5 different kinds (strains?) of dengue too, and if you get the same one more then once your fatality odds are way higher so says the rental car dude in tamarindo that got 2 of them or something.

Yea malaria might be there, but it might be in Oregon or newhampshire too (going off that theoretical could be anywhere with mosquitos logic). I dont wear bugspray here though. I wear it down south for Dengue.

lol and go for the millonaire orphanage buddy. Find those 1 percenters with nothing to lose.

 

best travel buzz kill is to see a travel nurse prior to your visit for required and recommended vaccines and medications.

They will make you rethink your trip in a 30 minute visit

 

That is for sure on the difference between the two.
And yes, my wife has been to France and Paris twice. We are aware of Paris--it is a big city, same with Rome which I fvcking hated (their food sucks there). My daughter had an internship once at the Louvre, during her last year at Harvard--according to the Louvre, she was the first American given an internship there (she is fluent with French). My wife joined her for 3 weeks, then met me and we scootered off to southern Spain for 2 weeks. That was a nice trip.
But we are only spending a couple of nights there, then headed to Provence, near Camargue, which is a National Park along the Mediternenean. Staying at a "boutique " hotel, formerly a horse farm out in the countryside.
If I see a mooslim, I will be sure to call Inspector Clouseau!!

 

o barry, I don't understand why you are so down on Biarritz. It looks like you would fit right in there.

[video=youtube;RJrUoLE8bPU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJrUoLE8bPU[/video]

 

Those crazy Frenchmen,
They fight with their feet,and fu(k with their face!

 

That sounds nice. Is this just the men or the women as well. I think i should go to France