Puerto Viejo = Bad bad bad place

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So, the four of us rocked up in Puerto Viejo, Stu and Poppy with the plan to move on that day or the following morning to Tortuguero to see the turtles laying their eggs. We headed straight to world famous Rocking J´s, a hostel which looks more like a refugee camp with tents and hammocks but is right on the beach (a plus at the time...little did we know what lay ahead) and a great place to meet people.

Puerto Viejo was a cute little beach town, lots of hippies hanging out on the beach...but we stayed most of our time at the hostel. We soon realised we wouldn´t be moving on any time soon while Annelies and Frank were still in town. On the Tuesday, our second day there, we finally booked our trip on to Tortuguero. After a great day, we head down to the beach to meet Annelies and Frank...in the dark...

...within a few minutes, we found ourselves lying in a heap after walking straight off a metre sheer drop. Stu with a few bruises...Poppy with what we soon realised was a broken arm.

In hope that some ice and rest would help, we went to bed in our hammocks early, with the intention of getting up early to head to Tortuguero the next day. Yet the next morning when we woke up, we soon realised that we were going to have to change our plans, and managed to delay our trip before heading to the local clinic.

Half an hour later we were sitting in an ambulance on our way to the nearest city, over an hour away: Limon. Unprotected Xrays, Injections in unusual places, and five consultations with five different doctors later, they finally determined that Poppy´s arm was actually broken. So, 10 hours later, we returned to Puerto Viejo with Poppy´s arm in a (very cool) blue fiberglass cast.

It was like the Black Hole of Bocas all over again, we couldn´t leave until Frank and Annelies were leaving, which was the next day. Clearly they were to blame.

Not a great start to Costa Rica.

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