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Published: September 28th 2010
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We left Quito, Ecuador to fly to San Jose, Costa Rica. We stayed in San Jose for one night. We had seen enough of cities and wanted only the good life on the beach. In addition to this, Simon’s big birthday was fast approaching, so we had to ensure we were somewhere special for this occasion. As we didn’t have much time to spend in Central America, we could only pick one destination in Costa Rica for several days. We wanted to pick somewhere outstanding, but Costa Rica is made for exploring and there are so many places to choose from, that to decide on just one place is near impossible. We read our guide book and internet blogs into the night and decided on settling down in the hippy village of Montezuma on the Pacific side for a few days.
We took a bus and a ferry to get to Montezuma and although it took the better part of a day to get there, it was a welcome relief to the previous epic bus journeys we had endured in South America. Just before we arrived at Montezuma, our bus slowed down to take dangerous turns and the road gave
way to a gravel track upon the boulders of the mountain that we were winding around. The guide book explains that due to a landslide some years ago, the road was destroyed and there are no signs of repairing the road as of yet. As we pulled up to the main beachfront of Montezuma, I was disappointed with what lay before me, a grey beach, with fearsome waves crashing on the shore. We wandered around the small village and discovered it was gringo territory, with most of the shops and restaurants advertising only in English. A lot of backpackers shirk from gringo filled areas, eager to explore the true Central America and I do agree with this to an extent. But this was a pretty little village thriving on the tourism that American’s and the rest of us provide and gringo’s are welcomed with open arms. I began to warm to this quaint little village of Montezuma.
As it was Simon’s birthday the following day, we booked a trip to Tortuga Island, advertised as a tropical paradise with snorkelling delights and barbecues on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean and only a short boat ride from Montezuma. Tortuga
means turtle in Spanish and it is so named as the island is in the shape of a turtle. Fitting enough, we also spotted two turtles mating on our way there, a rare and interesting sight! Our boat stopped at several spots, where we jumped in to snorkel. Following this we had a barbeque and it was at this point we spotted the banana boat and couldn’t resist hopping aboard for a spin. Our driver was great; there is nothing worse than getting on a banana boat and not toppling over into the water, in fact, that would defeat the purpose of a banana boat. As we careened through the Pacific Ocean, our driver took sharp turns, ensuring that each one of us clinging on to the banana boat was flung into the open water several times.
The following day we set out to rent an ATV (All Terrain Vehicle). Unfortunately for us they were far too expensive, so we settled on renting a scooter instead. As we made our way to the national park, Cabo Blanco, we noticed everyone who was passing by us on the road were on ATV’s. We soon learned that this was probably the
only way to get around as the roads were bad, turning into dirt roads at certain points along the journey. We wobbled along on our two wheeled scooter, very slowly towards Cabo Blanco. Cabo Blanco is a national park that was deforested completely for farming purposes, until a Swedish couple bought the land and decided to allow it to return to its original state, as a forest. A two hour trail leads you through a dense forest, which has regrown very quickly, we encountered a small group of monkeys who came up close enough for us to take a decent picture and following the shutter of the camera they proceeded to chuck fruit at us, evidently not warming to their modelling careers! The trail lead us to a deserted beach on the other side. The views from the beach are incredible, but to our disgust, on the beach itself there was litter everywhere. A couple of young teenage boys with machetes approached us while we were there and explained that they were volunteers with the park and that it was due to close shortly and we needed to turn back with them. If they were volunteers for the park, why
was the beach covered in litter, we both thought simultaneously and more importantly why do they have machetes? Needless to say, we were slightly unnerved, we told them we had just arrived and wanted to get in for a dip and would make our own way back. As we walked back, the sun began to set and the night creatures of the forest had begun to come out, we even heard a puma roar, which was truly astounding but to be honest I was glad to see the entrance of the forest after hearing that. Unforgettable! We left Cabo Blanco wobbling all the way on our scooter, when we realised that we should top up with petrol before returning the scooter to the rental shop. The nearest petrol station was further away than our actual trip to the park had taken, making the trip to Cabo Blanco much more expensive than originally intended. So we set about our long journey to the nearest petrol station, wasting more petrol to refill our tank! On our way back, we went down the same road into Montezuma that our bus had taken a few days previously. As we went along, I warned Simon
that the road was about to give way to the natural road created by the boulders of the mountain. He took this on board and slowed right down, so much so, that we were barely moving. As we were going down the boulder road that led to the town, our bike fell over toppling us to the side of the road. It was possibly the most pathetic motorbike accident in the world. I could see everything happening in slow motion. Lucky for us, because of our lack of speed, neither of us were hurt. I cut my knee and Simon, the driver remained unscathed!
The following day we took a trek along a river which led to one of the most magnificent waterfalls I have ever seen. A steady stream of people grappled with the difficult trek which involved crossing the river several times, but we were rewarded at the end with an idyllic setting of a regal waterfall pouring endless water into a natural pool that formed part of the river. As we abseiled down to the final leg of our trek, we were hot and tired and jumped straight into the inviting pool. I tried to get
near to the waterfall to no avail, being pushed back by the powerful force of water, although Simon did manage to get behind it. Finally, we climbed up alongside the waterfall and jumped from varying heights into the inviting water.
Although initially disappointed with what Montezuma had to offer, I completely changed my opinion over the course of a few days. Although the town is gringofied, (which in my book is not such a bad thing), the outskirts of the town has so many hidden wonders, not to mention the nearby Pacific tropical paradise of Tortuga island.
Onwards through Nicaragua to Utila, Honduras, where we will dive with the fishes!
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