So massive thanks to the guys in the shop in Liberia and Blast mag for showing us the way...the Subway bit in the title is Charlie who works in Uplands...this is how we found the parks!
Showing posts with label 2005. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2005. Show all posts
Friday, 31 August 2012
Another Costa Rica post inspired by a visit to Subway.
So in 2005 me and Siobhan spent the whole year travelling from Mexico City to Sao Paulo...mainly overland by bus and the rare taxi...i had my skateboard and was always on the look out for a spot or two. I had no idea Costa Rica would have some perfect concrete parks hidden away in some unlikely places. We arrived from Nicaragua by bus and the first town we hit was Liberia. Just off the town square we ran into a little skateshop. Asking about parks the guy in the shop handed over his two shop copies of Blast Magazine and pointed out the photos of the parks in Costa Rica, then it was down to us to locate them and decipher the directions. First to the coast and the surf town of Tamarindo and then on to Lake Arenal and the legendary Tilawa hotel bowls. Here are the magazines and the articles that led us to some amazing spots.
So massive thanks to the guys in the shop in Liberia and Blast mag for showing us the way...the Subway bit in the title is Charlie who works in Uplands...this is how we found the parks!
So massive thanks to the guys in the shop in Liberia and Blast mag for showing us the way...the Subway bit in the title is Charlie who works in Uplands...this is how we found the parks!
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Costa Rican concrete, April 2005
Just as i go and get a new board i go and tweak my knee, so with a self imposed skateboarding ban so i'll be flexible and good to go to Harrow in a couple of weeks it's time to rummage through my old tapes and pictures again. Delving down deep i hit 2005 again and a few weeks in Costa Rica.
Spent a few days in Tamarindo, a surf town on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.....here's a blog post from our old travel blog from the year we spent in Latin America.....
Thrasher has a write up of the park here....Tamarindo skatepark
It was super hot in the daytime so no one was around but a quick look down there at night and there was a full session going off. There was a generator, floodlights and music...coolers of beer and plenty of skaters, this is midnight at Tamarindo skatepark.
The great thing about just turning up in a place or even a whole country with no real knowledge or plan is that it's always going to be a surprise....and in the case of Costa Rica i never could have imagined how good it was going to be. Concrete skateparks surrounded by jungle where you can camp for virtually nothing with toucans flying overhead and monkeys howling at you from the trees. I had no idea there were skateparks dotted around the country until i arrived at the town of Liberia, the first big town you hit heading south on Route 1. Route 1 is the main road that travels through all the countries of Central America and so is the main bus route between the main cities....the Central American section of the Pan American Highway .
We found a little skate shop in Liberia and that's where we found out......concrete skateparks at the beach and next to a lake by a volcano!
Also didn't expect to meet too many people doing a similar thing but as luck would have it Eve and Efren were already camped out by the bowl and we spent the best week there exploring the jungle, skating at a mostly empty skatepark and eating bean burittos late into the night. Amazing place and people. There was also Michael who was like a skatecamp leader with no actual camp to run....he did a few kite surfing lessons on the lake, stayed in virtual luxury at the hotel and skated the park in the cooler evenings, good work if you can get it. Camping at the bowl for $2 a night we didn't have access to the hotel pool and hot tub but Michael was super cool and let us in for a swim and shower......
Then at the weekend the Central American skate scene descended on the park for a contest. From tranquil and peaceful to Red Bull banners, sound system and 2 days of heavy sessions. I got to be one of the judges for the contest with Michael and a couple of local skaters....then it was all gone again on Monday and we had the place to ourselves. Time to head south and move on to Panama.
The two videos are short clips from my mountain of tapes from the trip....the music is; Tamarindo video...The Minutemen "The search". Tilawa video; The Minutemen "Song for El Salvador", Nerves "Over and out" and Mikis Theodorakis "Always look for trouble".
Dan Cates went to Costa Rica too, here's his pics on the Crossfire site
My blog entry from Tilawa bowl contest
View 4242.....the map. in a larger map
Spent a few days in Tamarindo, a surf town on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.....here's a blog post from our old travel blog from the year we spent in Latin America.....
Thrasher has a write up of the park here....Tamarindo skatepark
It was super hot in the daytime so no one was around but a quick look down there at night and there was a full session going off. There was a generator, floodlights and music...coolers of beer and plenty of skaters, this is midnight at Tamarindo skatepark.
The great thing about just turning up in a place or even a whole country with no real knowledge or plan is that it's always going to be a surprise....and in the case of Costa Rica i never could have imagined how good it was going to be. Concrete skateparks surrounded by jungle where you can camp for virtually nothing with toucans flying overhead and monkeys howling at you from the trees. I had no idea there were skateparks dotted around the country until i arrived at the town of Liberia, the first big town you hit heading south on Route 1. Route 1 is the main road that travels through all the countries of Central America and so is the main bus route between the main cities....the Central American section of the Pan American Highway .
We found a little skate shop in Liberia and that's where we found out......concrete skateparks at the beach and next to a lake by a volcano!
Also didn't expect to meet too many people doing a similar thing but as luck would have it Eve and Efren were already camped out by the bowl and we spent the best week there exploring the jungle, skating at a mostly empty skatepark and eating bean burittos late into the night. Amazing place and people. There was also Michael who was like a skatecamp leader with no actual camp to run....he did a few kite surfing lessons on the lake, stayed in virtual luxury at the hotel and skated the park in the cooler evenings, good work if you can get it. Camping at the bowl for $2 a night we didn't have access to the hotel pool and hot tub but Michael was super cool and let us in for a swim and shower......
Then at the weekend the Central American skate scene descended on the park for a contest. From tranquil and peaceful to Red Bull banners, sound system and 2 days of heavy sessions. I got to be one of the judges for the contest with Michael and a couple of local skaters....then it was all gone again on Monday and we had the place to ourselves. Time to head south and move on to Panama.
The two videos are short clips from my mountain of tapes from the trip....the music is; Tamarindo video...The Minutemen "The search". Tilawa video; The Minutemen "Song for El Salvador", Nerves "Over and out" and Mikis Theodorakis "Always look for trouble".
Dan Cates went to Costa Rica too, here's his pics on the Crossfire site
My blog entry from Tilawa bowl contest
View 4242.....the map. in a larger map
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