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After a few very chilled out days in Bocas del Toro - which we absolutely loved, we decided to have a few more days on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, here in Puerto Viejo. The trip from Bocas wasn't long; a 50 minute watertaxi ride to Finca60, a short busride to Sixaola (the bordercrossing to Costa Rica). We got there during lunchhour, so the border was closed for half an hour or so. Only in Costa Rica do they actually CLOSE the border for lunch! Which meant a short wait (even though we knew this might happen, it still wasn't worth getting up an hour earlier 😊 ) Then we had to cross a slightly dodgy looking bridge to get to the Costa-Rican side. It looked like a railtrack, wooden planks crossed over each other, with lots of broken parts and big gaps. It was a wobbly walk with our big backpacks. We'd seen a huge truck cross just before us so we knew it would hold us, but still a bit of a scary moment!
After a one and a half busride to Puerto Viejo we made our way to Rockin' J's, a funky hostel on the beach.
We had the choice between a double bed in a musty cabin for $10 dollars each, or a hammock for $5 each. So obviously we got the hammocks. The hostel has mosaic decorations on the floors and walls and cool art all over the place, and guests have painted all the shower and toilet doors. A very bright and relaxed atmosphere (this might have something to do with the staff smoking joints as well 😊. We had lunch at the on-site restaurant and bumped into one of our friends from Intercultura, Robin. Such a nice surprise, it was one of her last days in Costa Rica, and she knew the area a little already, so she took us to nearby Playa Cocles. It was pretty sunny, which we have to take advantage of now that it's the rainy season.
In the evening we went to Reggae Night at Bambu, quite the event. If you hadn't spotted the rastafaris yet, then this is the place! An overwhelming smell of weed in the place too, and you get offered all types of drugs left, right and centre. And not subtly either, they'll shout it across the street at times. No wonder there are drug busts all the time. The smell was a bit gross after a while. I was pretty tired so I spent most of the night sitting on the beach chatting to friends, while Lucie was dancing the night away inside. That's Lucie for you...!! At one point a rastafari comes to talk to Melissa, one of the girls who was sitting with us, when a blonde girl comes up to the rastafari and slaps him in the face and shoves him several times and tells him to go home. He looks stunned and stumbles away. Then she turns to us (she looks scary) and says: "ARE YOU WITH HIM?!" So we obviously say No. She goes "I WON'T HURT YOU IF YOU ARE". Ok then, still No. Weird situation....we seem to get into those more frequently these days...
The next day all of our plans for another tiring day of sunning on the beach were ruined as it rained pretty much all day long. So Lucie, Marie-Helene (girl we met at the hostel) and I went for lunch about 300 m down the road and hung out there for about 3 hours. Then we walked into town and booked a rafting trip for Thursday. Bought a dress, finally managed to get a hold of my sister in New York (hadn't spoken to her since I got to Costa Rica!) and had an amazing Caribbean dinner of fish, plantains and tropical sauce at Soda Miss Sam's. After that just went back to Rockin' J's and got an early night. Our night in the hammocks was ok, but not extremely comfortable, so the following two nights we stayed in a tent with mattrasses which was a whole lot better and nicer as it gave us a bit more privacy (and the workmen around the hammocks made a lot of noise at 7am). On the Wednesday we woke up with the sun shining into our tents. Yay, finally a really sunny day. We got up, got some bread and went to the bus stop to catch a bus to Cahuita. And after one and a half hours of waiting, we finally did (grrrrr...damn Costa Rican bus system). I was extremely agitated and Lucie was getting very sick of my moaning, but I couldn't believe that when we finally have some sun, we spent all of that time waiting for a stupid bus. We finally got to Cahuita, a much smaller, cute town, and walked to the National Park, where there are gorgeous beaches. We found our spot, had a nap and a swim, the waiting was worth it. After two hours or so it started to drizzle but it was still nice enough to relax on the beach. There were some white-faced monkeys in the trees by our spot, so we watched those for a bit which was pretty entertaining. Then as we walked back to our towels Lucie all of a sudden pushed me aside. I looked down and saw that I had almost stepped on a snake. I prodded it a bit, and thought it was dead. Later when I prodded it again (yes, I know, I'm a smart girl) it moved, so I probably had a lucky escape there.
We had another wait for the bus, not quite as long this time, and got to Puerto Viejo around dinnertime, so we went straight to Chile Rojo, which we'd heard lots of good things about. And the food was amazing! Middle Eastern and Thai food, quite a change from the local food. It was also happy hour so we had a two cocktails, perfect to let us get an early night, as we were being picked up by our van to go rafting at 6.20am.
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