A look back at surfing in Costa Rica in 1977

I learned to surf during my teen years in Costa Rica. In the mid-1970's Costa Rica was an undiscovered surfing mecca. The only people who surfed were a handful of local "gringo" kids and a few adventurous surfers who made their way down from California. The beaches and the waves were empty. There were no surf shops or surfing schools. Surfboard wax was impossible to find; the only supply was shipped in or carried back from the States by friends and relatives.

Some of the Costa Rican beaches we surfed at in the mid-1970's were:

• Dona Ana near Punta Arenas. We would take the the train down from San Jose with our surfboards and backpacks and stay in cabanas right on the beach for a few dollars a day.
• Playa Jaco - now a huge tourist and surfing town. Back then Jaco was a sleepy fishing village. I went there with my family once for a week and was the only surfer on the beach the entire time.
• Manual Antonio - now a national park. We had friends from Arizona (the Bergeron family) who had a built a home home a few feet from the high water mark at the end of the 3rd beach. When Costs Rica turned the area into a National Park the government evicted them and they returned to the States. We used to camp on the beach for days on end, sleeping in hammocks strung between palm trees. When it rained we'd move our hammocks to the open-air thatched shelter the Bergerons had for guests.

I wonder where the Bergerons are today?