Puerto Viejo y Manzanillo!

Puerto Viejo

On Friday, I woke up at 4:15 am to catch a taxi to downtown San Jose. The bus was packed as we left at 6:00 am. I closed my eyes for a while but sleeping just wasn't going to happen. The roads were super narrow and curvy the whole way there, and it took 4 1/2 hours (with one pit stop) before reaching Puerto Viejo. I only packed one bag with one clean change of clothes and the bare necessities for camping. I had also made a quick visit to the local grocery store to buy food for the trip. I bought a loaf of bread, small jars of peanut butter and jelly, peach-flavored powder to make juice, and 3 sleeves of cookies. Sound familiar anyone?

We walked through town and found "Rocking J's," probably the biggest hostel in the town. Generally, the town is full of small restaurants, small hostels, vendors and bars. Rocking J's was a series of two-story ramadas filled with hammocks, tents, and a few cabinas.


This one's for you, dad! Couldn't believe someone else has the caterpillar tent, too!

The whole group ended up staying in hammocks for both nights for $5.50/night.

Las hamacas


First thing we did was lock up our stuff, put on our swimsuits, load up on sunscreen, and head to the beach. I decided to take my Frisbee to have some fun which turned out to be a great idea. Two local kids followed us along the 10-minute path to the beach. The Frisbee fascinated them, and it was a good opportunity to practice my Spanish. Their names were Carlos and Oscar, 10 and 8 years old respectively, and go to school in Puerto Viejo. When we got to the beach, they were eager to show us how to ride the waves.

Chilling on the beach

The waves in the Caribbean are frequent and choppy. It's not easy surfing, let alone swimming out to a spot where you can barely stand, especially in our area, known as Cocles. When a big wave was about to hit us, the kids would say "abajo, abajo!" to avoid getting your face smashed by going under the wave. If it wasn't a big one, we'd just push for the top of the wave. What they said then? "Arriba, arriba!" At one point we got out so far that the 8-year-old Oscar started holding my hand, then my neck. He weighed practically nothing so it was fine, but there was one giant wave that got us pretty good ("ayudame Andy, "ayudame!"). We laughed about it back on the shore. Then the group started playing some Frisbee with my light-up disc (took the battery out 'cause I knew it might pop out), and we had a few times where we almost lost it in the water. Only thing that got lost that day was the knob cover that holds the battery in place :( And although I applied a nice coat of sunscreen before we left, it wasn't enough to last the 4-5 hours we spent out there. My chest and shoulders turned pretty red by the end of the trip. That also made it hard to get comfortable in the hammocks. Both nights I didn't sleep well.


The second day, we did more of the same. Hung out on the beach, played Frisbee, and surfed. Yeah, I said it: I tried surfing for the first time! Brad and I split the cost of renting a board for the day ($20) and took turns trying to master the waves. All in all, we didn't have much luck. Two girls in our group grew up surfing and rented boards, too, and they gave us some helpful pointers. Knowing when to try to stand up is the hardest part to surfing, I think. At one point I rose to my knees for a second but nosedived into to water shortly thereafter. One thing I was able to do a few times by the end of the day was get all the way to the shore with my stomach on the board. That was fun in itself! At any given time in the day, you could count at least 20 surfers riding the waves. One guy even did handstands on his board with ease. Also, it rained the whole day. It was a light rain, or as the Ticos say here, "pelo de gato," meaning cat hair, because the raindrops are super fine, like cat hair. Right as it started to rain, I frowned and looked down, but to my surprise, I looked right at the battery cap to my Frisbee! Still can't believe I found it 24 hours later.

Surfing makes you hungry. You spend a lot of energy getting over the waves beyond the swells let alone trying to surf back. Brad and I cooked some pasta for lunch at the hostel's kitchen, and for dinner, we ate at the hostel's restaurant. Delicious food for a great price! Rice and beans of course, along with strips of steak, guacamole, tomatoes, corn, tortillas, peppers and onions and some other things I didn't know the names of. Gigantic plate of food. I ate some of Jordan's, too, haha. Travis would be proud :)

Cooking lunch


Pasta!


At dinner!

The second night after dinner, we played some card games at the hostel with some other campers.

Playing cards. (I didn't wear a shirt pretty much the entire weekend in case you were wondering).


There were some travelers from North Carolina and two girls from Sweden who spoke excellent English. The North Carolinans were studying here, too, and the Swedes were on vacation to Central America in general. The whole group went to a club for an hour and danced. Think Jamaica when it comes to music in Puerto Viejo. Lots of laid back beats with a combination of reggae and rap. They also played some American songs like "I Gotta Feeling." The club was packed, which = hot, and we started getting sick of the same music so we went back to the hammocks and crashed.

Manzanillo

I had heard from many sources that Manzanillo, a small town up the road, is a fantastic place to visit. I was determined to go the day before, but no one was interested because of the rain and the 8-mile trek. I woke up fairly early, still determined to go, and Brad, a student who studied here last semester, was the only one who wanted to still check it out. We rented bikes for the day (5$ each) and it took us just over an hour to reach the place. These bikes were cruisers, aka they had only one gear, and there were three fairly large hills to climb which we barely surpassed without having to dismount. There was pelo de gato all day too, haha. It was well worth it though.


There was such a different feel in Manzanillo than Puerto Viejo. I absolutely LOVED it!! The main difference that Brad and I realized is that Puerto Viejo was the town for tourists to go, whereas Manzanillo is the place for Costa Ricans to go for vacation. P.V. was pretty much all surfers and tourists. Manzanillo was full of families chilling on the beach, couples kissing in the sand, kids running around playing soccer, people having picnics...very much a different atmosphere. There was even a pickup game of soccer that I almost joined in on but the game ended because all the families started lunch.

On the ride back to P.V., Brad and I saw four vultures in the middle of the road squabbling over something. Turned out it was a dead iguana! Pretty sweet. The thing was around 4 feet long with yellow and orange stripes.

The bus ride back was long and boring. I couldn't sleep at all; my neck hurt from sleeping/surfing. I feel fine now, but man that was one heck of a 4 1/2 hour ride.

Tomorrow we go to the Volcano Irazu. Thanks for reading!