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Who needs a pickup truck? Wednesday: back on the road, this time for a bit longer journey - the Caribbean Sea or bust! (hopefully not bust!)
After successfully navigating my journey without the aid of the GPS on both Sunday and Monday, I decided to give it another shot for this longer leg. I mapped it out online beforehand and committed it to memory, keeping the GPS on just to make sure I was still on the road I thought I was. On this day, not relying on the GPS turned out to be a good thing, as there are new roads up in this area that the GPS did not know about - and they were good roads! So my GPS was showing me driving through the middle of the wilderness for probably an hour - who knows what route I would have taken just programming my destination in?! In another deluge, I was glad for nicely paved highways!
On the first half of my journey, I passed through Sarapiqui, where the Ara Project has a field base for a portion of the year - it had just been closed down while I was in Punta Islita, but it was nice to see
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Bananas to the left of me, bananas to the right... the area and think of all the great green macaws living there that Jack had been tracking!
I eventually joined up to a highway that is the main route from the capital of San Jose to Puerto Limon, their major seaport. With it only being a single lane each way, it was slow going with all the trucks and the rain. As we neared Limon, I began passing field after field of banana trees, Dole plantations, and then shipping yard after shipping yard….so many shipping containers, yards and yards full, and so many trucks hauling to and from the port.
I headed south from there to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, my stop for the night, and checked into my cabina. I booked two nights so I could have a full day to explore the area, and the following morning I set out in my car to scope out all the beaches of the south Caribbean. I drove further south to the village of Manzanillo (where there is another Ara Project site) and worked my way back to Puerto Viejo, with some breaks in the car when it would start raining. On Day 2 of my trip (and most
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Watching the surfers at Salsa Brava recently on Day 22), I was wading in the Pacific Ocean, and on Day 27, I was wading in the Caribbean!
I also spent some time wandering the shops of Puerto Viejo. The area is very different from other parts of Costa Rica, more influenced by other parts of the Caribbean. I ended my afternoon watching the surfers out on Salsa Brava, a difficult surf spot surrounded by reefs. The waves crash in multiple directions, making for a unique spot! My day ends with a bit more research and a dinner of strawberry yogurt and chocolate chip cookies - traveling is not all glamour, folks!
Tomorrow I’m off to the north east corner of the country, Tortuguero…
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