There's a major part of Costa Rica I hadn't seen yet, and a part I was saving for Neal's visit: the infamous Caribbean side. Infamous because it could just as well be a completely seperate country for all it has in common with the Costa Rica I'd experienced up to that point.

It is a well known, and much talked about, fact that a huge "rasta" community lives there - presumably having come over from Jamaica. I'd been told countless times how different the culture, the food, the way of living and even the beaches were there and I wanted to check it out for myself. I'd also been warned as many times that Puerto Limon and Puerto Viejo could be hotbeds of tourist crime and generally unsavory areas.

The area has an interesting history. When they were building the railroad across Costa Rica in the 1800s the NorthAmerican who was in charge of the product planted banana seeds on the side of the railroad thinking he could make some extra money. It turned out that the country could produce waaay more bananas than anyone had ever thought and so the guy ended up starting the United Fruit Company and making billions on importing tropical fruit to the states and not hardly making any money on the railroad! All of those bananas needed pickin, though, and when people kept falling ill or dying under the Costa Rican sun they carted a bunch of Jamaicans over thinking they'd be impervious to the tropical ailments and heat. Who knows if it worked or not, but the interesting thing is that there aren't a whole lot of bananas to be found in this area because every last one of them is exported out!

So we were in the way southern part of the Caribbean, very close to Panama. The bus ride there was 4 1/2 hours which was no big deal until we bought our tickets, boarded the bus and found there were no seats left....only to check our tickets and where the seat numbers should have been it said "en pie" or "on foot". In other words we stood for the whole ride, or rather we took turns standing because there was one seat empty.

We arrived around 6:00 pm. I hadn't made hotel reservations because everyone said how deserted it was there and how easy it was to get a hotel and not to worry about it. So THIS ONCE I didn't overplan and guess what....NO HOTEL ROOMS! Figures. Luckily we happened upon a bike rental shop owned by a German ex-pat who was happy to help by calling a friend of hers who owned a hotel and happened to have one of the bungalows free. Great! We went off to find the hotel wondering if it was going to be another budget ant motel we'd become accustomed to. We were in for a hell of a surprise because this hotel was beautiful! It was a series of private bungalows with hardwood wraparound porch complete with bamboo furniture and hammocks overlooking private jugle scenes. Inside the rooms were huge with high ceilings, tile floors and bamboo beds with mosquito netting. And to top it off (hold your breath) HOT WATER SHOWERS! Heaven.

We enjoyed that night in our clean, insect free hotel room after hot showers. Seriously, you learn to enjoy these things immensely. The next morning we woke up early and walked to the town center of Puert Viejo to rent bikes for a little trip down the coastline to Manzanillo.

Here is Neal doing the renting....

...and we're heading off!!

It was a lovely ride through beautiful jungle scenery. Once we got out of the actual town of Puerto Viejo, which was pretty touristy, it opened up into pristine beach and jungle scenes. The bike ride really was great, we both enjoyed it a lot. We stopped for lunch at a little soda along the road.

I got the traditional Casado which is Gallo Pinto (rice and beans, but in the Caribbean it has coconut milk in it too), chicken and salad. Of course fresh juice too. All of this totally fresh and for less than $3.00!

When we finally got to the more secluded beaches of Manzanillo we weren't disappointed! The beaches weren't much to swim in because of the huge coral reefs but my lord were they beautiful to look at and wade in!!

We hung out there for most of the day, and around 4:00 headed back for the two hour ride home. We were on bike, but the locals took a more laid back approach to their transportation...

We stopped for dinner at a local soda in Manzanillo and had literally one of the best meals of our lives. I ordered the catch of the day and was brought an entire fish grilled in garlic with all sorts of veggies....oh my gosh it was delicious! Neal ordered the fried chicken and that chicken was so fresh that when we got there we counted five chicken playing and when we left there were only four. He was in heaven!

After dinner and a last look at the coast we headed on home, the bike ride back was just as lovely as the ride there.

The next morning the two early buses were filled so we spent a nice, rainy day on the Caribbean coast and headed home on the 4:00 bus...IN OUR OWN SEATS thank you very much. The Caribbean coast was beautiful in its own way but the Pacific coast was much more welcoming, the people were nicer and the beaches more accessible. For my money I'll be spending my last weekend in Costa Rica exploring more of the Pacific side of fun...