"Don't miss this uplifting tale of fantastic surfing, saving the environment, and a greedy company's efforts to expand their business at all costs—all in our sleepy little southern town of Pavones."—Carol Blair Vaughn, Costa Rica Star "A valuable addition to surf historiography. . . . Enjoyable and well-told narrative."—Tolga Ozyurtcu, Sport in American History “Congratulations to Jeremy Evans for telling ... Read morethe truest story so far about Pavones, the iconic end-of-the-road place where human greed and conflict threatened to destroy exactly what brought people there.”—Drew Kampion, award-winning author and former editor of Surfer and Surfing magazines “Jeremy Evans tells the true story of surfers, tuna, drug lords, and jungle fever in the backwaters and blue bays of Costa Rica. For anyone who has traveled the surf coast of Central America, The Battle for Paradise is a must-read.”—Serge Dedina, executive director of Wildcoast and author of Wild Sea and Surfing the Border “The waves of Pavones rifle down a long left-hand point break, and for this reason they have become some of the most iconic waves in Costa Rica. However, as incredible as the waves are, the story behind the town is what will truly leave you gasping for air.”—Kyle Thiermann, professional surfer  “Pavones, Costa Rica, lay in a bucolic slumber until an entrepreneurial American smuggler with a Napoleon complex paid cash for a county-sized chunk of its surf-swept coast and made himself king. Things spiraled out of control from there, subsiding into a tropical stew of escapists, surfers, squatters, greed, and long, clean lefts.”—Steve Pezman, publisher of the Surfer’s Journal  Show Less