:: Mal Pais isn't really Costa Rica; it's a surfer enclave at the end of a treacherous sometimes un-passable jungle road running to the tip of the Nicoya peninsula and, for all intents and purpose, the entire civilized world. It is populated mostly by an expatriate citizenry of Canadians, Germans, and Americans who, like me, are on the lamb from first world society. Some of them bought land here a decade ago before it was the place. Others are hold-up in cabinas, hovels, and cinder block houses, surfing their days away until they run out of money, time, or brain cells. It’s not a bad way to go. The surf is consistently sweet—a series of well-shaped beach breaks that roll out in matching left/right peaks of arching aquatic tubes—especially with a southern swell. While it's still cheaper than the US, it's not cheap by Costa Rican standards. There are probably more yoga shalas, real estate offices, and surfboard shops per capita than anywhere else in Central America. It's kind of like a tropical third-world version of Ashland.

Luckily, because of the sketchy access road, it will always be pretty damn remote. There are few if any cops. The area is primarily ruled by a small mafia that traffics in high-grade Columbian coke and a gang of teenage surf pirates who terrorize the touristas by stealing anything that isn’t surgically attached. They haul ass down the jungle road on ATVs like coke crazed warriors: all brown skin, tattoos, and surfer shorts.

My friend Jake caught a ride to the closest bank in Cobano from a couple staying in a cabina just up from mine who had been robbed the night before. The thief came in while they were sleeping and stole everything—cash, video camera, laptop, clothes—leaving only a surfboard and a pair of shorts. It’s an all too common occurrence in Mal Pais.

One of the teenage gang leaders, Jeffery, has shoulder length black hair and sharply cut attractive features, save a bad case of acne. He rolls on a 250 Yamaha dirt bike, or a thrashed double-top-tube cruiser, depending on mood. He also owns the local surf break. The kid has probably been riding waves since he was old enough to dog paddle and is such a badass he doesn’t even wear a leash—pulling aerials, roof rides, and tube shots like they were so many jumping-jacks and always coming up with his board. Well, almost always. In the hour plus that I watched him today he had to swim to the shore for his board twice in five-foot surf. It occurred to me that I will never be this cool; which is a relief. I don’t think I could handle the pressure.

Most mornings the howler monkeys wake me at sunrise with their primal grunting, but lately they’ve been louder and more ubiquitous throughout the day. Felipe, the maintenance guy, tells me it’s because the mangos are getting ripe and they’re fighting over who gets the first pick. Right now, I’m sitting in the cabina with my door open; my feet up on a low table; settling into a creative groove after a day punctuated by walking up the beach to the internet kiosk-thingy and back to check in with various editors. Dinner was a large plate of grilled fish with rice and beans ($3) in an open-air palapa where I watched the Argentinean owner school his French neighbor in a game of pool. There were large beetles and tiny bugs crawling around on the table, but they just ignored them and persisted in sinking shots—occasionally using the bugs for added backspin.

I walked through the jungle in the dark listening to waves throw themselves against the beach in cosmic rhythm. Each one a moment of aquatic perfection breaking with fluid symmetry on the uneven shores of reality and I know two things: I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be right now, and the moment of perfection will be over any second in an a explosion of fine mist. The trick is to, like Jeffery, ride it with style and confidence--then get out right before it explodes.