Wrestling monkeys in the Carribean!

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Right back when I started planning the Costa Rican leg of my trip with Emma and Hannah, we had a very important decision to make- should we stay on the Pacific or Carribean coast for Christmas. Seemed like a pretty easy decision- Carribean, obviously! However, all I’ve been hearing recently is how bad the weather is on the Carribean coast- rain, rain, rain. All day, all night. Boo.

We’d already booked our accommodation, so we had to go. Imagine our surprise when we arrived on the bus to glorious sunshine and clear skies- yahoo!
Cahuita is an absolutely gorgeous place. The beach is my favourite one so far.

Cahuita is part of a national park, and there is a jungle trail that leads 6km along the coast so you can stop off at lots of little coves and beaches along the way. There is so much wildlife. Hundreds of lizards running everywhere (my personal favourite being a type called ‘Jesus Christ’ because they can walk on water!), beautiful butterflies, deadly bright yellow snakes (only saw one and it was a baby- phew!) and hundreds and hundreds of monkeys!

The first time we saw some monkeys high up in a tree on the trail we were soooooo excited and took about a billion photos. Shortly after moving on all I heard was ‘Oh my god Sophie’ from Hannah, and there was a monkey just a few feet away from us on a low branch. ‘Woo hoo! We love monkeys!’ we cried excitedly and whipped out our cameras to get some nice close ups. However, this monkey started to bear his teeth, hiss at us and make threating lunges, so our laughter quickly turned to near sobs as we now wailed ‘Waaaaa! We hate monkeys!’ and hotfooted it down the trail away from him. Phew, safe at last! Our fear of monkeys continued when we put our bags down on a beach to have a quick dip, and one leapt out of the forest and started foraging in my bag. Hannah was a woman possessed and forgot all about her monkey fear to wrestle my sarong out of the hands of the damn beast. Thanks Hannah!

However, we do love monkeys again now as the next day we saw a nice group of monkeys who didn’t hiss and lunge at us. We were able to get really close to a cute mum and baby.

We ended up having 2 fab days on the beach there. It seems so weird to be hot on a beach so close to Christmas. I wonder how long our good luck with the weather will hold out……………….

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Photos

palm tree
The whole place was like a setting for a Bounty advert!