Costa Rica: Cahuita

(Post by Colin)

Dear friends,

I am sitting in a Cafe in Banos, Ecuador writing this final blog post for Costa Rica..  I just ate a delicious omelet for breakfast. I noticed another table being served what looked like a croissant and asked for one - but they clearly do not call it a croissant..  so not sure if I will get one or not.. :-)

So this blog post should be really really easy to write, Wanna no why?  Well...  in Cahuita we did almost nothing.. Let me explain.. Cahuita is a sleepy seaside village on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica.  Most of the population here comes from the Caribbean originally and indeed it does  feel like we are on a Caribbean Island. Glorious sunshine, pristine beaches, reggae music and people moving very very slowly perhaps as a result of the herb which can be smelt almost everywhere... Here are some pics of the village:

A typical house..

Man selling juice..

Village street

This part of Costa Rica - the Caribbean coast - is apparently less visited than the others because it has a reputation for being dangerous.  What it is - is completely unspoilt..  We did not feel any danger at all.  It was very relaxed.  So relaxed in fact that we spent the 5 or so days here  doing very little. Here we enjoyed the warmest weather in Costa Rica, between the hours of 12-4pm you'd best stay indoors because the sun was so hot. We hardly moved but to walk in the national park nearby,  swim in the sea, share some conversation with the locals, eat some more Caribbean influenced meals and see more wildlife than we had seen so far.. Our daily activity happened before 12pm and after 4pm.

We stayed in a place called  Cabinas Jenny.  We chose this because it was right near the sea but still in the village and it had a balcony with a  hammock and only $30 per night.  Jenny, the proprietor was a Canadian lady in her fifties who had been living in the village for 20 years..

Sign for Cabinas Jenny

Kizzy chilling in our hammock

Col chilling in the hammock

View from our balcony..

On our first night we took a walk  to check out some other places to stay just to see what the quality was like and confirm that we had made a good choice.  We checked out many places and we saw some better ones but the price/quality ratio was just not equitable so we stayed put.  We ended up eating and dancing to live music in a bar by the Playa Negro named  the Reggae Bar.. Great fun !

The band's equipment

Barbecue starting at 7pm

The party kicked-off

That night when we had a hard time sleeping because although so quiet in the day - this village seemed to awaken at night and we could hear the thumping reggae and reggaeton  beats for most of the night.  I mean it seemed that most people actually where nocturnal here.  The village was empty in the day and then busy at night. We also had to deal with very unwanted and sneaky guests at night - mosquitoes. These little buggers didn't make any noise, and would bite through denim. When they could not bite you in the usual places they would get very creative.  Kizzy had two interesting bites on the upper lip. We bought a mosquito spray called Off, and part of our daily ritual was to spray ourselves with this awful stuff. Between that, an uncomfortable mosquito net, a nightly killing ritual ( i.e me  ninja like  slapping them with a magazine !) and an unstable ceiling fan that on high speed made us feel we were taking off  as our weapons of choice, we still could not avoid their bites. We heard that these fellas hunt in groups, so often we would get up to 5 bites in one place. Not a nice sight!

Sometime during the period we took a walk in the national park which is  jungle bordered by the beach and the sea. It is unspoilt paradise.. This park was the first park on our travels that did not have a fixed entry fee. In keeping with the laid back vibe it was a donation only park..

I say unspoilt but actually some parts are destroyed.. The area was once well know for its amazing coral reefs and its variety of fish. Snorkeling was once amazing here. We were told not to bother by some who had done it they said there is almost nothing left and the coral is destroyed. This is as a result of humans and also  nature - namely hurricanes.

The jungle walk we took was amazing  - we saw several tribes of monkeys really close to us, some cool crabs,  several racoons and birds, lizards, spiders and butterflies.  Here is a selection...

We really enjoyed Cahuita.  We would have liked to see other places  like Puerto Viejo and Manzanillo but we decided to leave those for another time and stay put.  This is definitely a part of Costa Rica that we would very much like to explore more of, but we had to move back to Alajuela and give ourselves a bit of time to get things sorted for Ecuador. We had yet to book a place for our first night in Quito. We went back and stayed in the same place we started out in in Alajuelo - Casa Tago with Constanza & Humberto. We were welcomed back like family and spent a couple of nights there before flying to Ecuador.

Us with Constanza and Huberto

Ok - so I am stealing from Kizzy's blog style a little here ;-)   - but it seems in keeping with the final blog post for Costa Rica to have a final thoughts section - so here we go..

Final Thoughts..

Ok so I am wary of too much generalisation  particularly  as we only spent  16 days in Costa Rica.  But for what ist worth hear our my impressions..

We like Costa Rica.  Beautiful scenery - mountains, lakes, beaches, 5 star tourism and  all in between.  This is a country that is very much geared up for tourism. It is not cheap for longer term travellers but for our friends in London - very cheap.. There is no need to book a full on tour type itinerary to travel here as it is very easy to play it by ear and sort things out when you are here.  There is so much to do in each location.  I would actually rent a car if I was to come here again. Despite what the guide books said about the driving being terrible - outside of the main cities which is where you want to be there is hardly a car on the road..   We did not see the whole country - 16 days is not enough to do that if you also want to relax and not be on the move constantly.   Maybe possible with a car. We did not see the Pacific coast side at all.  Apparently this is where most of the 5 star resorts are and where most people go..

The people of Costa Rica are very well summed up by their catch phrase "Pura Vida",  literally meaning Pure Life but I translate it something like "whatever".   They are very relaxed and don't seem to care one way or the other about most things.  Not a fiery people at all.  This makes them easy to get along with - but not overly accommodating in general.  They pay no more attention to you as a tourist than to anyone else..  As a tourist you don't feel like you stand out - in fact people pay no attention to you at all. 

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That's all folks..  Next up - Quito, Ecuador..

Lots of Love,

Colin & Kizzy