Puerto Viejo

This weekend I went to Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean Coast. The journey took almost 10 hours, thanks to a one-hour traffic delay on a windy mountain road, a little rain and one very animated cab driver. By the time we arrived I was ready to roll into my hammock (the hostel we chose had huge sleeping areas where you could rent one for $5 or string up your own for $4), but our driver was not wrong when he said the fiesta never stops at Rocking J's. The place was crawling with every stoner international student and party-animal volunteer who decided to roam the Caribbean Coast that weekend, so the sounds of reggae and clinking glasses carried on well past two in the morning.

One of the many mosaics at Rocking J's.

Our beds for the weekend.

Around 1am the owners of the hostel started herding everyone out to a bonfire in the back lot, where there was more drinking and odd reggae iterations of a number of songs played on an acoustic guitar. When they started up a rasta-fied version of "Lady in Red", I knew it was time to hit the hammock.

I woke up to the sound of waves rolling in on the beach only a few hundred yards away, and the discovery that someone had walked off with my shoes in the middle of the night. After a small bout of panic, I took a stroll around the hostel and found them under another person's hammock. I'm sure it was just a case of drunken flip-flop confusion, but I slept with my shoes under me for the rest of the weekend.

Transportation in Puerto Viejo means bicycles, so we rented a few and pedaled around town until we found coffee (and ice cream). Then we swam in the water at the black sand beach until it started to rain.

We had made plans to go to a jaguar refuge on Sunday morning that was supposed to have sloths and monkeys, but sadly we would have missed our last bus home if we had gone. So instead we caught an 11am bus toward San Jose after spending a few more minutes sitting on the sand.

Overall it was a good weekend, but the natural beauty of Puerto Viejo often seems overshadowed by the strong tourist vibe of the whole town. I seldom heard Spanish spoken at our hostel, and a lot of the shops and restaurants in town seemed to be run by Gringos who had moved there to live a slow life and surf the Salsa Brava. I think I was hoping for a little more sunshine and a lot more genuine Tico charm in Puerto Viejo.

Next weekend, it's off to the Pacific Coast to visit Manuel Antonio!