Nemo James

2012 Costa Rica – Puerto Viejo

12th January 2012
We left Key West early for the four-hour drive to Miami airport to catch a flight to Costa Rica. We were at the airport three hours early which was just as well because it took an hour to check in and get through security. The luggage conveyor belt wasn’t working and so men were taking our luggage with trolleys. We were told that it had not worked properly since it was first installed which was surprising for such an important airport as Miami.

It was a two-and-a-half-hour flight to San Jose where Federika’s school friend Zaida was waiting for us. I had booked a hire car and paid extra to pick it up at the airport which in reality meant a man met us and took us to the car which was miles away. It was a bit of a shock seeing the state of the roads compared to those in Florida but I soon got used to them. We spent the night at Zaida’s house and the next day Federika went with her to change some money which turned into a major expedition as they couldn’t find anywhere that would change British pounds so they had to go to the centre of town. That night we went to an area where they have dozens of restaurants serving food from all over the world, except Costa Rican food. I ended up eating Chinese food in a Peruvian restaurant. It was a great meal but I was surprised to find it was around the same price as the UK and wondered if there was anywhere left in the world where you could dine out cheaply.

14th January 2012
We set out on our two-week tour of Costa Rica starting with a few days near the coastal town of Puerto Viejo. Although the distance was only around a 100 miles it took nearly five hours to drive as the road was so bad and there were so many road works. Costa Rica had a lot of heavy rain and the roads were built on the cheap so a lot of mud and rocks get washed down onto the roads making them difficult to drive on. In one section we saw a large articulated lorry lying in a ditch with the driver outside waiting for someone to rescue him. Despite all this, it was an enjoyable drive through some interesting terrain which included a rainforest. Some towns looked very shabby but others had a cute Caribbean feel to them. As we got closer to our hotel the state of the road deteriorated even more with large potholes everywhere, some which could just about be avoided and some which stretched across the entire width of the road creating a kind of inverted speed bump.

We reached Totem Hotel Beach Resort just before dark and were delighted to find a strange mixture of buildings in a kind of arty Caribbean style owned by an Italian family. We were given a lovely large room with a balcony overlooking the sea and furniture made of bamboo. By now it was dark and I went out onto the balcony to enjoy the sound of the sea when in the tree opposite I saw something having a good old scratch. I had no idea what it was so I asked Federika to take a look. She thought at first it was a monkey but then decided it must be a sloth which is like a monkey on Prozac.

We were very tired so went to bed early but just before turning the lights out Federika read me a report that said a few years ago Costa Rica had a big earthquake which raised the land a metre and a half before putting it down again. This damaged a lot of the roads and bridges so many of them were still awaiting repair. With all the talk of earthquakes, I was alarmed when in the middle of the night the already loud waves crashing on the shore suddenly turned into a deafening noise which because of my sleepy state I was sure was a Tsunami. It turned out to be very heavy rain on our tin roof so I abandoned my search for a life jacket.

The next day we hired bicycles and cycled two kilometres into Puerto Viejo which was like going back to the sixties with wall-to-wall beach bums. People of all ages had left the rat race to enjoy life in the sun and some of the best surfing in Central America. I liked pottering around souvenir shops but rarely bought anything so I surprised myself by buying an unusual incense burner made out of thick bamboo in the shape of a tree trunk with all sorts of colourful things stuck to it. I also bought a coconut shell skilfully carved into the shape of two birds by a surly Rastafarian. He didn’t like me asking for a discount and I didn’t blame him as it must have taken him ages to make. How I wish every salesperson in the world would give a fixed price so we didn’t have to feel obliged to bargain all the time because we can’t win. If we ask for a discount the seller gets upset that we are undervaluing their work and if we don’t, then they think we are stupid for paying the full price.

For lunch we sat at a beachside restaurant and ate fish while we were watched the amazing surfers, wondering how they managed to survive the huge waves that frequently engulfed them. I had a lesson many years ago in Hawaii and spent two hours swimming out with my board, getting on and falling off and then swimming back to shore to retrieve the board before restarting the process. I think my total time on the board was around 10 seconds which was surprising as I had done quite a lot of windsurfing so had pretty good balance. I never did know why they didn’t give me a board with an angle strap attached to it.

There was a crowd of people watching a Labrador fighting with a crab that had large claws. The Labrador skilfully grabbed the back legs of the crab to avoid the claws and then swung it around which must have annoyed the crab but didn’t seem to do it any harm. The dog knew it was the centre of attention and played to the crowd so skilfully I was half expecting it to come around with a hat asking for dog biscuits. The weather was very changeable, with rain one minute and bright sunshine the next but by the time we were ready to cycle back to the hotel, the clouds had lifted and the sun was hot. We spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach where conditions were similar to Peru with big waves and strong currents, so we had to be very careful how we swam.

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