The Caribbean Side…

I usually try to blog one of our adventures as soon as possible, but with the in-laws here and school starting up again, I’m way behind. Oh well.

On the last day of January the four of us and the in-laws headed off across the country to Caribbean side to check out that area. Probably the most challenging part was trying to navigate through the capital city of San Jose itself. Once that was done we went through Cartago (the old capital before it was moved to San Jose), past Volcan Turrialba and then out towards Limon.

Along the way we saw some of the huge banana plantations where they grow them for export. There was row after row of them and they seemed to go on for ever. Very cool.

Having heard that there really wasn’t much to stick around for in Limon, we zoomed straight through and turned south along the coast to Cahuita. The first night we stayed right at the entrance to the Cahuita National Park.

While our hike through the park was a definite highlight for me, we also discovered that it has an interesting history. The original town of Cahuita was actually situated inside the park as it stands today. They moved everybody out back in the 50’s and stopped all of the logging that had been going on there. Then, once the park boundaries had been set up, they started to reforest the area. What I was looking at was a second-growth forest only 50 to 60 years old. To see the tangled jungle and massive canopy in the area today really impressed me.

Megan and I got to go on a late day hike into the park without kids for a change (thanks grandma & grandpa!!!). We saw a lot of howler and white-faced capuchin monkeys quite close to the trail which is always great.

But my favourite part was when we came to a waterway that was spilling out of the dense jungle across the beach into the Caribbean Sea. We could walk upstream a bit and look into the thick Mangroves on each side, but I didn’t want to go very far. To see a huge croc or snake come shooting out of the underbrush would not have surprised me at all!!! It reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of the Amazon. It was really great.

The next couple of nights we moved over to Playa Negra just on the north end of Cahuita. A few weeks before there had been an unusually long rain which brought a lot of driftwood down the rivers which made its way onto the beach. It was too bad because the beach looked great (other than that). The good thing was we were at a great little resort (also called Playa Negra) with a pool and the most playful German Sheppard guard dog named Dolly. Both kept the kids occupied for hours.

Being on the Caribbean coast, this side of Costa Rica has a lot more of a Jamaican-like flavour to it - the residents are much darker-skinned than the rest of Costa Rica, and there is much more English being spoken. One night (again thanks to the in-laws), Megan and I got to go out to “Coco’s Bar”, where they had a  guy singing along to Reggae tunes in both English and Spanish. It was kind of fun to people watch the locals and tourists alike and just kick back and enjoy.

Another night we were eating at a good local restaurant when the waitress said that the kids might want to go and see the “perezoso”… Huh?, what’s that? So out we go and we realize that it means “sloth”. How cool is that. This is the first one we’ve seen so far.

From there it was down to almost the Panama border at Punta Uva for the last 2 nights. Here we had a great resort on Playa Chiquita right on the beach. Unfortunately, it was this beautiful location where Grandpa, Nathan and I all finally came down with the stomach bug that Megan had previously. I stayed in bed for 24 hours more or less and read a whole novel. Nathan was much quicker recovering. I did get out once for 20 minutes or so to take some pics of the kids at the beach, and we were all better after a short time.

Megan, Grandma and the kids did get the chance to go to a great little zoo / animal rescue center without me and I was jealous. They had a great time playing with the monkeys, holding baby sloths, etc. (See the pics below.)

We were all very happy that we got to see that side of the country.

 

Coco’s Bar in Cahuita

Stuff found in and around the park.

Jungle meets Ocean meets Megan.

Howler in the trees. No, those aren’t his eyes.

The sloth at the restaurant.

 

 

Some views from our spot at Punta Uva (Playa Chiquita)

 

The animal reserve…

This one screams for a punch line but I’m drawing a blank.