Costa Rica-Cahuita/Puerto Viejo, La Fortuna, Cartago

March 20th-29th

Destination numero uno with Seth and Jess was the southern Caribbean coast of Cahuita and Puerto Viejo Costa Rica. Our home for six nights was the Atlantida lodge on the outskirts of Cahuita.  The southern Caribbean is surprisingly different from the rest of the country.  The Ticos here have beautiful dark black skin and wear their hair in thick dreads or braids down their back. Similar to Belize, a Caribbean dialect is also spoken and reggae music and Bob Marley rule the dirt road town.  Cahuita rests on Playa Negra (Black Beach) named this for the dark sand that fills the shoreline.   There are few tourists in this town compared to all the locals.


Our time spent on this side of the country was wonderful and relaxing.  The food here is described in the guide as the best in the country.  They add a "Caribbean Touch" to the cuisine which highlights amazing flavors (lots of zesty lemon, coconut, tender seafood).   I thought about naming this entry "Eating our way through the southern Caribbean" but realized there were so many other pieces to highlight.  Besides eating, we spent a lot of time in the sun.  Black sand beach was an ideal spot to bring a cooler and soak up the rays.  The beaches further south were more tropical and beautifully clear (and home to the best street meat in Costa Rica).  On our second day we hit the road early for horseback riding and zip lining.  The stables and zip were way out in the middle of nowhere but nobody complained when we realized it was a private tour just for us.  We road into jungle and out along a rocky river.  Jess's horse was a bit crazy but she handled it well.  Hers disliked all of the other ones so we tried to keep them at a safe distance!  The zip lining was amazing!  Over the jungle and river we went.  Since it was just our little group normal safety rules were lessened to add a bit more excitement!  We also rented bikes from our new best friend in town "Big J".  We think he liked us a lot until Adam blew out a tire on his brand new bike and mine was returned making horrible screeching metal noises.

(celebrating Jess's birthday!)

(town of Cahuita)

(Adam, Jess, Seth on horses)

(gearing up for zip lining)

(Seth doing dragon pose)

(Playa Negra)

Having a rental car gave us a lot of flexibility to check out the neighboring town of Puerto Viejo and beyond.  South of Puerto Viejo we found long beautiful stretches of white sand beaches that most were too naive to know about (we stumbled upon it by chance).  The water here was easily the prettiest we've seen in the country and the coral reef was only 100ft out in many places.  One day we rented ATVs to better explore.  As we headed south toward the Panamanian boarder we found more hidden beaches lined with lush green jungle.  Talking to a local it wasn't hard to understand why one hidden piece of shoreline was featured on the cover of a well known travel magazine.

(wild horses on the beach)

(Cait and Jess kayaking)

One reason we made our home-base Cahuita was its proximity to the national park.  We spent one day exploring Cahuita National Park's jungle and beach trails searching for animals.  We spotted lots of critters, lizards, sloths, and of course....monkeys.  This area is home to many White-faced and Congo families.  About 3 miles into our hike we noticed a seemingly harmless White-faced monkey following us, curious about what we had in our backpack.  When we stopped on the beach to smash into a fresh coconut he was at full attention.  He watched enviously (they can make that face) as we put a corkscrew into the coconut and passed around the cold sweet milk.  When Adam cracked the nut to get the meat out, the monkey could take it no longer and lunged at him.  We threw him a piece to get him away while we ate the thick white almond-like center and took lots of pictures.  Hearing the commotion, monkey #1 was joined by a second monkey.  This time they came at us again, and when we didn't stand down, one jumped on the other's back and they bared their teeth.  It sounds silly to let 18 inch monkeys scare you but believe you me....they get crazy!  They are amazingly quick and have no fear (not to mention sharp teeth).  Another monkey joined the first two and we realized they were not backing down until they had every bit of that coconut.  So yes....4 giant mammals lost to 3 little teeny ones who scratch their bums in public and chew with their mouths open.   Tough luck!

(Seth and Adam working to get into that coconut)

(the monkey stalking)

(standing tall to look tough)

(attack mode... picture stolen from Seth :) )

Our next wild animal adventure happened a couple nights later.  We were sitting outside of our rooms on a covered porch finishing up drinks and cards around 11pm.  All of a sudden Jess's expression went to disbelief as she told us "not to be alarmed but a giant sloth was headed right towards us".  We turned around and could not believe what met our gaze.  A large, fury 2-toed sloth was slowly crawling (upside down) toward us on the lip of the roof's overhang.  It literally would have smacked right into Adam and Seth if we had not moved.  Sloths are such funny animals to watch, especially up close.  Their brown shaggy hair hangs off their long arms and legs them making them look like they fell out of a Dr. Sues book.  As we snapped away in delight we noticed a newborn baby clinging to the mother's belly!  We could not believe our luck!!!  We had just been saying how neat it would be to see a sloth at close distance...and here was one big mama passing right by us at our hotel in the jungle!  We followed the sloth as it moved along and were a bit horrified when it chose its route across the garden, via the low hanging electrical wire.  A few minutes later the sloth was still slooooowly making its way along the wire when a second and larger sloth started coming at it quickly.  Our first thought was that this was the father here to rescue the mother and baby from the watchful humans.  This was not a rescue mission.  As the second sloth started charging, the first sloth picked up incredible speed regressing the way it came.  Only then did we notice the second sloth also had a baby and that this must be some sort of protective attack.  We watched in horror as our sloth and her newborn were knocked from the electric wire to the ground 7 feet below!  Thankfully, mom and baby sloth were just fine.  After a little nap from all the commotion, the mama sloth returned to her hunt for the perfect tree to curl up in.

(our suprise visitor!)

(the tired mama takes a break)

(sleeping baby)

Our last evening on the southern Caribbean was spent on the beach surrounding a bonfire (we're still not sure this was legal action).  None the less, it was a perfect way to say goodbye to this leg of the adventure.
Saturday the 26th we drove the 4 hours back to San Jose and said a sad farewell to one of our wolf pack, Jess.


Afterwards, Adam, Seth and I headed back to La Fortuna (where we'd been with Jeff and Nik) to spend a couple days. There is so much to do there that we had missed a lot on our first voyage.  We got there Saturday afternoon and (you guessed it) had a huge and delicious meal of Italian food after settling into Hotel Vagabondo.  Just before sunset we hopped in the car and took off for the natural hot springs.  We spent the evening with the locals soaking in the warm pools talking about how lucky we to have full visibility of the famous volcano at the base of the town (the same one poor Jeff and Nikki saw none of!). 

(view from Hotel Vagabondo of Arenal)

(Seth and Adam soaking in the springs)

(Volcano Arenal)

The next morning I ventured closer to the restaurant to get Internet service.  To my disbelief, I had 4 or 5 (very calm ) emails from Jess explaining that her flight had never left the day before and filling me in on her whereabouts in Costa Rica!  Come to find out, there was a problem in Miami and all flights that day were cancelled.  The earliest flight home she could get was 3 days later!  Thank goodness she speaks Spanish and seemed to have no trouble befriending a cab driver to help her find a little hostel in the city!
We packed up quickly and were picking Jess up 3 hours later.  Our pack was back to four!  We headed south of the capital to the city of Cartago.  The drive was absolutely stunning through deep green fields and winding up to the top of Volcan Irazu.  We sat by the side of the road for a while eating ice cream and watching a horse competition in a funny little mountain town on the way (we saw no other tourists anywhere that day!)

(watching the horse show)

(haunted garden in Cartago)

Early Monday morning we went back up the volcano to the national park.  To our surprise the cloudy morning cleared up and we had complete visibility of the mysterious volcano craters of Irazu below.  Seth may or may not have woken the sleeping volcano with his ancient Mayan ritual of throwing the volcanic rock back into the crater...only time will tell!

(Volcano Irazu)

(Cait and Jess trying to stay warm!)

Late that morning back in San Jose, we hugged Seth goodbye as he headed off to Oregon. 
We spent Monday afternoon exploring the city of Alajuela.  Alajuela is such a sweet city with lots to see and do.  The bustling streets are packed with bright shops and stores and lots and lots of friendly ticos!  Our favorite part of the day was meeting Marcos who owned a fruit shop.  He insisted that we come right in, sit on his 3 stools, and drink cold coconut milk while he cut up our fresh pineapple and mango.  We stayed and chatted with Marcos for an hour or so and would have stayed all day if he weren't so busy.  He made sure we were all certified on how to machete through a coconut before we left. 

(Cait getting machette lessons)

(Jess, Adam, and Marcos in the fruit shop)

When Tuesday morning rolled around we discovered Jess had a bug!  Poor girl!  She was such a sport and did finally end up making it home safe and sound to Philly late that night!
 

Cait and Adam are still loving life together in Central America :)