Less than 20 years ago, this remote jungle hamlet on the pristine central Pacific side of Costa Rica mostly saw gringos of the fringy type - eccentrics, trust fund kids and the occasional fugitive from the law - many trying to escape something.

I, on the other hand, was trying to catch something.

Although, from the way the board shot out from under my feet (for the 30th time) and I was chucked unceremoniously into the tropical waves, it was going to take awhile.

No one knows when surfers started showing up at Playa Guiones, but it's clear they helped set the tone for a place that it is far less about ATV tours and zip-lining than it is about the simplicity of a beautiful beach and nearly perfect waves. It seems natural to say the area has a laidback vibe - but you can't.

There is no vibe. The place just is.

Time is counted in tides and rides, not minutes and hours, and even without the surf, families and other travelers here will be captivated by the tropical idyll - exotic butterflies and birds, stunning sunsets and laser-bright constellations.

As a San Franciscan trying - and failing - to learn surfing on Northern California's frigid and rugged coast (locked into a neoprene wet suit with the "Jaws" soundtrack playing in my head), I thought that Guiones, with its warm, rolling surf and cluster of homespun surf schools, might give me a second chance to realize a decades-old dream.

I decided to find out.

Surrounding region

Driving into the villages in the surrounding Nosara region, it's easy to imagine the Costa Rica of 50 or 100 years ago. Cows and their herders stroll slowly along the bumpy dirt roads fringed by the deep green jungle and clearings for pastures and farmers' dwellings.

Dropping into the Guiones area, the nameless roads narrow and the jungle curtain closes even tighter. The land is moist and overgrown. Here and there, an open-air bar, restaurant or a sleepy hotel.

For surfers, a main artery among the labyrinth of rocky roads leads to Playa Guiones, a crescent-shaped cove, where rolling waves emerge from a beach break and set up in a big bowl of 80-degree ocean.

The first morning, I did my best to shake off the jet lag of a 10-hour flight and stumble a couple of hundred yards toward the beach for a 9 a.m. lesson. Palm-sized blue-and-orange land crabs scurried off the path and into sandy burrows, and bright bursts of colors in the trees turned out to be rainbow-infused butterflies and birds.

My first surfing lesson began decidedly inland, on my belly on a single-finned, 9-foot board on the beach, memorizing a series of steps that might lead to me "popping up" and riding a wave.

"Waterline, feet together, shoulders back, paddle, push up, drive knee and rotate back," said Collin, my instructor.

Just as important, said Collin, was the turtle roll, a technique for making it through the relentless waves at Guiones. (It boils down to pinning your forehead to the front end of the board and shooting through the wave backward.) The roll is crucial to making it "outside," where the waves actually break, as opposed to surfing on white water (a wave that already has crashed).

Part of Guiones' strength as a learning ground is that, unlike many surf spots in Northern California, the waves never stop coming. Fall off the board? No big deal; here comes another one.

The first goal, according to Collin, a Huntington Beach surfer who moved permanently to Costa Rica several years ago, was to stand on the board while surfing the whitewater. If I mastered that after a few days, I might be able to go to the outside before I had to return home.

After about five turtle rolls, I turned toward shore, looked over my left shoulder and raced through my list as a roiling mound of whitewater bore down on me. I positioned my chest at the waterline, went through my steps, felt the water lift me up - and promptly fell off the board.

That anticlimactic scenario replayed over and over again until I finally popped up for a few seconds and felt the thrill that keeps beginners coming back.

A special place

While I couldn't quite claim knowing how to surf, I already had fallen in love with Guiones and the sport. From my experience at beaches in Pacifica, Santa Cruz and a few spots in Southern California, I knew this place was special.

"We're 9 degrees north of the equator, so we're in the window to get a good swell all the time, said Rick Walker, Collin's dad, who owns a surf school hotel in Guiones.

"But even if there is no swell, we get a push when the tide changes because there's so much water, so the waves are never too small ... with the sandstone bottom, you fall and hit sand and water and not a reef or rocks."

What Walker's description left out was the nearly clear, jade-tinted water, almost complete silence, and views of a lush jungle.

Nosara, a group of hamlets in a region called the Nicoya Peninsula, is welcoming most of the year. While rain is constant in September and October, there's almost none from January until April. Temperatures top out at 95 in March and April, but cool down to 75 after 4 p.m. even in those hotter months.

On my trip in December, it was very sunny and hot, and after my first morning in the surf, I was beat. My eyes hurt from all the salt and sun and I was winded, but I was fired up about my chances of catching a real wave before I went home.

Long days of surfing

Between surf sessions, the common pastimes are eating and sleeping. Most days, I would go back to my lodgings, have a couple of cold beers and eat whatever was being served - usually something grilled, with beans, rice tortillas, fruit - read a few pages of a book and take an hourlong nap.

Others might be more ambitious.

On my daily trips to the beach, I noticed that families would spend all day there. The lack of development near the beach and the absence of Jet Skis, powerboats and hawkers makes it serene and unlike more popular beach "vacation spots." Sure, you can learn to surf at Waikiki Beach, but the view from the water might as well be downtown Los Angeles.

Beyond surfing and sleeping, most of the popular Costa Rican outdoor attractions also are available in and the around area: tide-pooling, horseback riding, yoga, hiking, river explorations and turtle watching (there is a refuge just north of Guiones). Excursions are just not pushed as heavily here, so if you don't want to be bothered, you won't be.

And the jungle wildlife spills over into Guiones, including monkeys, butterflies, birds, frogs and lizards (as well as the ubiquitous pet dogs that roam roads with nonchalance). Visitors get a lesson in local fauna just by taking a walk.

At night, travelers and locals stroll to neighboring bars and hotels to hear live music, play cards or watch sports on TV. Some spots have dance floors, but there's nothing approaching a disco. Swimming on warm nights, under crystal clear constellations, is idyllic. Surfing twice a day simplifies the choices: Pleasures requiring little exertion rise to the top of the list.

He keeps returning

Over an Imperial beer at the Gilded Iguana bar and surf hostel, Fred Norchi, a barrel-chested college soccer coach from North Carolina, told me he's made a yearly pilgrimage to surf at Guiones since 1996, when there were only two hotels.

One time he overdid it and stayed for three weeks.

"That was just too long, because I was so darned tired from surfing all day I could barely move," Norchi said. "I was still tired when I got home."

He came back the next year, though.

"Guiones just has consistent waves, that are medium-sized and not too critical, the beach is good and sandy ... it's got to be one of the best places for beginners."

Beginners who like a little challenge, that is.

By day 3 of 5, I had already had six surf sessions and my body was starting to show it. The top of my right big toe was scraped raw and bloody from dragging it on the wax board surface as I popped up in the whitewater. My right rib sported a big raspberry from spending so many hours on my stomach, and my shoulders ached. On the plus side, my biceps were quickly becoming sculpted and I was liking my new tan.

But with only two days left, I determined to surf from the outside.

In the afternoons at Guiones, the descending sun paints the low-tide beach a light shade of golden orange, and sea snails make tracks in the sand as families and their dogs wade in the shallow water. Locals make driftwood bonfires up and down the beach. The ocean, still warm as ever, seems more inviting - maybe because the waves are breaking further from shore.

Walking out with another instructor, Jordan, for the 100-plus yards to where the water lapped up on the beach, we talked about all the things I had learned.

Once we made it to the outside I sat on my board, panting and feeling the warm sun on my back. As the sun dropped closer to the horizon, the water shifted from jade to a much deeper blue. Sets came through like rolling mounds as we bobbed up to their peaks and back down the other side, now watching the back of crashing waves as their spray landed on our shoulders.

"OK," Jordan said. "Turn around and start paddling. Shoulders up! Paddle hard, paddle, paddle, paddle, paaaaaaadle!"

I paddled and pushed up - and suddenly I was crouched at the peak of a green wave, slashing to my right and moving so fast I could feel my heart pounding.

I rode that water all the way into shore, the entire ride feeling like a dream. I had caught what I came for, although as with most people who have escaped to here at some point, the place also caught me.