Mmm... Watermelon. I had been craving that watermelon since the busride that morning, and I was only too happy to see it on sale at the streetcorner in Puerto Viejo... but first things first. After almost 3 weeks of incessant travelling and 4 days of rainforest adventures we decided to take it easy for the remainder of our time in Costa Rica and spend the last 4 nights doing nothing at all at the beach.
And that's exactly what we did. The End.
Except not. We first stopped at Cahuita, a sleepy beachside town where we found the crappiest place (Backpacker's Dream) to stay with a half-baked owner-José-in an old wooden house that was way past its demolishon date. We spent that afternoon on a white sand beach building sandcastles (or sand taj-mahals) which, as big 21 year olds that we are we then destroyed by a flotilla of flying sandballs and then razed to the ground with our bare feet- ending their short lived reign of the beach.
That evening we had a sumptuous meal of squished bread and spam (low budget? what makes you say that?) finished off with our faithful peanut butter for dessert. The next morning we walked down to the black-sand beach, ogling the wooden cabinas we might have stayed in were we only a few dollars richer- they had large rooms with porches and private kitchens, hammocks and swimming pools, all for just 30 USD a night. We then unhurridly took the bus down to another beach town of Puerto Viejo, just a half hour away.
At Pto. Viejo we found a Hammock Hotel called Rocking J's run by an American, of course. The photo below was where we slept, a open air roofed structure with neverending rows of hammocks. It was a huge place, with tents for camping above, plenty of picnic tables and open areas, and directly on the beach too. The whole place was covered in mosaic tiles, from the floor to the columns and even the bathrooms. Its such a cheap and easy idea, me and Charles were left wondering why they dont have more of these places around Latin America. We spent 3 nights here, the 1st of which I slept blisfully, and the 2 following ones a little less so, but still pretty well.
Well, the only downside of Pto. Viejo was that most of the food was more expensive that what we had paid to sleep. So we decided there an then that all our meals would be self-cooked, and that means pasta at night and tuna sandwiches for lunch. All except for the first, that is- we found an old rasta selling carribean food next to the road and we decided to go for it. It was probably the best food we've had since the 5 star hotel buffet in Cancun. A huge portion of rice & beans with sweet fried bananas and a fish cooked in coconut curry all topped off with the above-mentioned watermelon (and a beer, of course) all while sitting under a palm tree on the edge of the carribean sea. It was pure paradise. After finishing off our plate I took off my shirt and plunged into the water.
We spent the afternoon at the ugly black sand beach north of town where we covered ourselves head-to-toe in black sand, making very convincing black people, if it wasnt for our pale faces. The next day we had a leisurly breakfast and then rented bikes for the day. We biked down the somewhat paved road leading to 4 other beaches, past cacao plantations and carribean houses where we stopped at Punta Uva beach to take a look. There we met the 3 Tico ladies in the postcardish photo below, who were nice enough to let us take a photo of them so we could post it online and make all of you jelous. I hope its working.
We then broke our pact of homecooked meals and ate a repeat of the previous day at Maxis, at Manzanillo beach before making our way back to Punta Uva, where we swam, layed on the beach, and harnassed nature itself to build a massive sandcastle which withstood the attack of the tides (ok, so we're really 5 year olds in 20 year old bodies.).
The following day we woke up late again, had a great breakfast of fruit juice, PB & J and coffee, and then settled back into our hammocks to read the day's newspaper (and the story about a second hurricane that we just missed). We sitrred only to eat our tuna sandwich lunches and then decided to walk 10 minutes to a good whitesand beach that we'd seen the day before. Well, thanks to Hurricane Felix we got huge surf waves even out of surfing season, so we spent the whole afternoon battling the waves and relaxing on the beach.
Today we took the bus back to San José cuz tomorrow we fly to Ecuador, and there we meet Sao Mai and her friend Maria, Monica or Mariela...
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