Caribbean Costa Rica
Cahuita, peace and quiet and beauty
08/28/2010 - 08/29/2010
Made it to the Caribbean side. As everyone promised, there was less humidity and no rain! Unfortunately the waves were flat. Great thing about these tiny countries is that one of the coasts will be dry, and the other coast will be wet with waves. Ditto with blue skies - at least one coast will have them at any given time. White sand only on the Caribbean side tho 
Spend a night in San Jose, which is the transportation hub. Miserable city. It's large and urban, but without the charm / glamour / food of all the large cities I love (Buenos Aires, New York, San Francisco). The ubiquitous long-distance bus ride... banana plantations
Then bus down to Panama. Planned on breaking up my trip by spending a night in Peurto Viejo, which everyone raved about, but ended up getting off in Cahuita which somehow seemed quiet and more appealing to me. Joined a group of Isralis and stayed in an Israli hostel (because of the sheer number of them traveling, they often get great deals).
As promised, it was beautiful!
The last time I played with starfish was when I was a little kid. My legs are all bruised up from surfing. Cahuita is small and sleepy, which was what I wanted at that point.
Food is better! The Caribbean influence = coconut milk cooked into things, which I loooove. Also by this point I remember that not all fish has the nasty fishy taste as in America, and I'm enjoying the local fish. Also the smoothies (batidos) here are amazing. They are rich and thick, not watery and synthetic. Basically whole pieces of fruit, ice, and a tiny bit of sugar. Heaven. Unfortunately and disappointingly, CR does not have a large variety of exotic fruit - but I am in heaven eating mango and pineapple every day. I don't even like pineapple in the states.
1 week of my 3 week CR trip done. Instead of 3 weeks in CR, looks like I'll spend a week in Panama. Up to this point I was really really torn about going to Nicaragua vs. Panama. Nica was supposed to be cheap with great surf, while Panama was supposed to be fun and stunningly beautiful. Everyone I met kept telling me different things. At this point, Cahuita was pretty enough to make be very happy with my decision.
Traveling is a dream. My hardest decision in a week (I actually agonized over this quite a bit) was which tropical paradise I wanted to go to.
Posted by dilemmalyn 08/28/2010 20:08 Archived in Costa Rica
