Caribbean Flavour

On the boat to Cahuita
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From Tortuguero we travelled south down the Caribbean coast. First up was a 4 hour motor boat along an inland waterway parallel to the sea. This took us halfway down the country to Moin where we went 20 minutes further on by local bus to Puerto Limon - despite the eager taxi drivers insisting there was no bus to catch here. The taxi drivers like to throw a lie or two in to get your business in this country! In Puerto Limon we boarded another bus to take us 1 hour further south to Cahuita, our first town to visit along the southern coast.

Playa Blanca
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Cahuita is a small place with seemingly as many cabinas for the tourists as there are shacks for the locals. With just a few dusty roads and the local people taking shade in their porches there is a real laid back vibe here. It´s warm and humid even when the sun is hiding and with the Caribbean waters being warm it was definately beach time.

The trail winds its way along the coast alongside little stretches of sand giving you chance to cool of in the Caribbean every once in a while

A baby Green Iguana
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There are 2 beaches in Cahuita, Playa Negro (another untidy black sand beach a kilometer to the north) and Playa Blanca (a white sand beach heading south and the better of the two). Playa Blanca is just inside the National Park and after paying your "donation" you have access to the beach which is nice for swimming and the 8km National Park trail. The trail winds its way along the coast through dense forest, occasionally popping out alongside little stretches of sand giving you chance to cool of in the Caribbean every once in a while. Monkeys, Sloths, Iguanas, Lizards, Crabs and a bright yellow Viper Snake were spotted here, obviously with the help of the park rangers who have an amazing ability to pick out these well hidden animals. The noisy howler monkeys and the mischeivous spider monkeys swinging in the trees were quite easy to spot however, even for us two.

Hallucinogenic flower
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Our next stop was 30 minutes further south to Puerto Viejo, full of "surf dudes" and old Americans who have already or are looking into property investment in this safe corner of Central America. Although still a small town it is full of bars and restaurants catering to the tourists and there are miles of guesthouses and lodges stretching out along the coast. The beaches are excellent for surfing here and although hyped up they´re not good for much else, especially when the sun isn´t out. Signs in one of the cheap hostels saying "Maximum stay permitted 3 months" and "Daily showers mandatory" gives a good indication of the sort of lazy people you get here.

Shannyn on the trail
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Shannyn´s love of Iguanas took us just south of town to Iguana Verde, a conservation centre full of the little critters. The green Iguana is endangered in this part of Costa Rica as local people still hunt them. We were able to see many of them at the centre from the tiny bright green babies to the well camouflaged adults that turn a brownish shade as they get older making them well hidden in the jungle. This is a good place to visit, not only for the animals but also for the many plant species this country has to offer - 40 varieties of bananas are grown in Costa Rica, including pink ones! There were also several strange plants on show including toxic pink flowers used by locals for their hallucinogenic properties.

Monkeys on the trail
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The weather wasn´t kind to us during our time here and we´d left our surfboards at home so we decided to move on and headed back inland to the cloud forests in the north. As with all of our experiences in Costa Rica so far the food has been pretty good, a real improvement on South America. The Caribbean influence here meant that we were able to try dishes such as Jerk Chicken and Shrimps in Coconut Sauce - very tasty. The people have also been really helpful at all times, well apart from the taxi drivers. We also move on hoping to escape the mosquitos. They have been with us everywhere in Costa Rica so far and are really starting to annoy us - I don´t think either of us have had so many bite us in our life - WE HATE THEM!

Heliconia plant
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Our next destination was the Monteverde cloud forest region which turned into an all day mission to get to. We set off at 7.30am from Puerto Viejo on a 5 hour bus back to San Jose which was a straight forward journey. San Jose has about ten bus terminals, all going to different places around the country, so our next job was to get another shifty taxi driver to take us to the right terminal for our onward journey north. Then we had a 2 hour wait for the bus to Monteverde which turned into 3 hours as the bus was broken and they didn´t even try to fix it until departure time! Obviously there was no fixing it so we were all just put on another full-ish bus where I had to stand for 3 hours. From here we transferred to another bus for the last 2 hours on a slow bumpy road to our destination, arriving at 8.30pm. A long day but at least we got there... Gary