TheDaviesInCostaRica: Montezuma & Monkeys

Our latest adventure brought us to the southern end of the Nicoya Peninsula to a sleepy little beach town called Montezuma. We are getting used to Costa Rica’s tourist towns being less developed than we are used to, and Montezuma is no exception. The main part of town is really just a T-intersection.

But its lack of size is more than compensated by its funky character, and one of the more interesting central parks I’ve ever seen. This large green space has big trees and a play set, much like any other park, but these trees are awesome, huge old-growth jungle trees, with vines and twisted roots and dense foliage. The play set was a little different as well, in that right at exact center of the top of the slide was a big pile of monkey crap! Oh yeah, that was the best part of this central park. The resident pack of white-faced, capuchin monkeys (at least that what my handy-dandy Costa Rican field guide tells me they are)

This trip was a little different as well in that we went with our friends, the Gonzales family. And it was a good thing too (not to mention a lot of fun!), as shortly after we left we had car trouble and had to return to Atenas & leave the car at the mechanic. So now we are much later than we wanted to be, and worried that we would miss the ferry we needed to take from Puntarenas. Add to that it was raining most of the day, so that when we arrived we were all a bit stressed I guess, and didn’t really get a good first impression of things.

For example, maybe I’ve been spoiled by the other beaches we’ve been to lately, but this one was a bit rockier and steeper such that the waves sort of just formed and then crashed right away and you couldn’t really play in them much, but perhaps we just picked a bad day.

Anyway, the longer we stayed there the better we all seemed to enjoy it, and the kids didn’t have any complaints about the beach at all.

Our last morning there, I was awoken at 7-ish by what sounded like somebody jumping on the roof. I looked out the window and saw a pack of monkeys right outside scrambling through the trees (and probably jumping on my roof!). They looked like they were eating the leaves or fruit or something. What a great sight. We also saw an armadillo, an Agouti (so sayeth the field guide), a Coati, and one night Megan and I were walking into town and some big furry thing scurried down a tree just to the right of us on the path and scarred the crap out of us. No idea what it was, but give me some time and I’ll be sure it was a jaguar. We could hear (but no one saw) howler monkeys as well, and it was so cool to know that we were in a place that the development hadn’t pushed out the wildlife yet.

The accommodations we had were both quite good but not as cheap as we’ve been used to, so either low season is over, or Montezuma doesn’t play by those rules. And unfortunately, we got ripped off in an obvious tourist trap restaurant (“The Bakery Cafe”, not that I’m mentioning any names). It had “Queso Hamburgesa”, or cheeseburger in the menu for 2000 colones, and then some other stuff written in small print below. So, when we got the bill for 4000 colones for each burger we went back to menu and realized that the small print was if you want MEAT in your burger, it’ll cost more!!! Oh well.

The 2 families got along well enough for at least 2 new nicknames to emerge, with John becoming Macgyver for his extreme resourcefulness, and Megan becoming Black Mountain Woman during the poker game (long story). The hair-raising trip back from Montezuma to Paquero racing to catch the 11:00 ferry was crazy, but hilarious (and successful). If you could see some of the “huecos”, or potholes on that road, you’d know what I was talking about.

Click on the following pics to see a bit larger…