Costa Rica Part 1 - San Jose, Puerto Viejo & Cahuita!!!

After some seriously long greyhound journeys in the States our 2 1/2 hour plane flight to San Jose seemed very short indeed. The first port of call was San Jose downtown which acts as a main hub for public travel throughout the country. The cheeky bus driver thought he could get away with short changing Nic by about £10 so I stepped up with my 'extensive' Spanish vocabulary.....'No, Amigo' while pointing to the measly 5 cents he had given us as change. His blank face told me I needed to do better. I went off to consult the Spanish phrase book and it paid off as we got the result we deserved...our money! Nic had found the arrival to Costa Rica a little over whelming and was fairly quiet for about an hour!

Some further shenanigans later and we finally arrived at our hostel. Once we had dumped our bags in our room the friendly owner Carlos helped us with our travel plans for our adventures soon to come (and also a little Spanish!) We chilled around the pool that evening and prepared our journey to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca the following day.

The bus journey was a crazy experience. Our driver was super nuts, over taking on blind corners and over taking just about anything he could - the record for the journey was 3 arctic lorries in a row! A little nerve racking to say the least, especially with steep drops either side of the road.

It was all worth it once we arrived... Puerto Viejo, what a town!! Coconut palm fringed black sand beaches, tasty food and friendly locals! By this time Nic had begun to settle in to Costa Rican life just fine!

The area is predominantly an Afro Caribbean community and Jamaicans were originally brought over to work on the banana plantations. For over 50 years these communities lived in racial segregation, forced to live independantly from the rest of the country. Infrastructure: roads, electricity and telelphone communications were not built until some time after 1949 when the racial borders fell. The result is a community and culture different and independant to that of the rest of Costa Rica.

We stayed in a lovely cabina with it's very own tropical garden, a great place to view hummingbirds as they shot from one flower to another. The cabinas had a resident cat, a species which I have now seen in a new light... they are not quite as lame as I once thought they were. We were lucky to secure the cabina as the area was very busy with people coming to enjoy the New Year on the coast, just like us.

We spent the day admiring the town and stocking up on our goodies for New Years Eve....namely a bottle of Nicaraguan rum! And what better way to spend New Years Eve than on Playa Negra, the spectacular black sand beach of Puerto Viejo?! The celebrations were awesome. We went to a reggae bar that backed on to the beach and got involved with the locals and tourists alike. The locals were lighting some pretty big fireworks from their hands...whilst drunk on rum of course! We woke up in the early hours of the morning after passing out in our hammocks to find that Nic had been bitten a total of 28 times by mosquitoes!! That'll teach us! We spent New Years Day recovering and enjoying some hammock and beach time.

With only 1 day left in Puerto Viejo we decided to go on a little adventure. We hired 2 rickety bikes and rode 12km to a small town called Manzanillo, passing a number of beautiful beaches along the way.

The heavens opened along the way and it rained so hard we were drenched in minutes. It was surprisingly refreshing though! We treated ourselves with an ice cold drink in Manzanillo at Max's, one of the popular local bars on the beach. Nic fell off her bike on the way back as she decided to veer off into the hedge...!! (note from Nic - it was actually because Sup stopped dead in front of me to look at a dog across the road!!) We did have a good giggle about that!!

Puerto Viejo had a decent range of snack food and drinks, my favourite being the following: Mashed yucca plant stuffed with mince inside and fried in a thin layer of batter. I have also become a fan of meat sticks, Empanadas (meat or cheese wrapped in corn bread), Costa Rican pizza (which has about 10 times more cheese than pizzas in England!) and a drink called Heil made from sugar cane and ginger which as I have found is the perfect blend of ingredients.

The local nickname for the drink is the less tasty sounding 'Frog Water', due to the murky colour! These tasty treats are always accompanied by a bottle of piccante (hot sauce), as you know I love my hot sauce and have finished quite a few bottles along the way!

Cannabis was smoked openly in Puerto Viejo despite being illegal in the whole country. It did seem to be a way of life for many of the locals and I think it will always be for them.

We did get approached by a number of dealers who make a living selling to tourists. We were also approached by this fella... he was the biggest crab we have ever seen!

Next up on our itinerary was a town just North of Puerto Viejo called Cahuita.The National Park in the area was the main reason to visit and the amount of monkeys we saw just at the park entrance (as well as this crazy parrot

that spoke English, Spanish and a little Spanglish as well as having the most insane laugh) promised to be the start of good things to come.

Walking through the slim trail with the crashing coastline to the left and the jungle backdrop to our right, we found many secluded beaches and at times it felt like we were a million miles away from civilisation.

We saw this cheeky White Faced Capuchin monkey who almost succeeded in taking someone's food! People have been feeding the monkeys which over time has taught them some very bad habits and they have learnt not to fear humans, but rather to scam them in order to steal whatever they can in the way of food!....speaking of which...Racoons.

We did see a cute family of racoons and naively we put our lunch bag down on the floor to take a photo and within seconds it was gone! Now we had been walking for 8km and at the time we were actually looking for a place to eat lunch. I had built up quite an appetite and while Nic found it hilarious that racoons stole our food, it did take me a little while to see the funny side!

We were also lucky to spot a sloth hanging out in the tree....that is one animal which is well suited to the laid back vibe of the Caribbean coast!

Cahuita had a great bar and few little Sodas (family run restaurants, usually their home) although we did find that not all grocery stores were as welcoming to tourists as Puerto Viejo. More of an excuse to eat out!

However, the dogs did give us a big welcome and they were particularly attracted to Nic. She would give them a little affection and then they would follow us around all night (and she named them too!). Our very own pets abroad!

I'll leave you with one of my favourite photos. It has occurred to us that it would have been useful to take a short spanish course before we left, however, we are still attempting to speak spanish and it's the trying that counts, right?! My initial impression of Costa Rica was that it appeared to be an amazing country, it felt like one big adventure playground waiting to be explored. The hardest decision was where exactly to start, which i'm sure you will agree was definitely not a bad situation to be in.

Costa Rica Part 1 - San Jose, Puerto Viejo & Cahuita!!!

San Jose, Costa Rica