Our first stop in Costa Rica was the Caribbean beach town of Puerto Viejo which I visited and loved 5 years ago. In a way it was nice to be somewhere familiar, though I am using the word "familiar" in a loose sense as the town seems to have at least doubled in size since last time. All kinds of development has popped up where there used to be none, the main roads are now paved, and there is even a bank! OK, this may not sound like much but the change is huge :-)

We arrived after dark in the rain, listened to the rain all night, and when we woke up it was still raining. Not good if you`re looking for beach life...

Still hopeful that we`d get to use our brand new diving certificates, Silje and I headed out to find the east coast`s only diveshop. We found it closed, with an owner nearly bored to tears. Just one month earlier he had left his good job in Canada to start a new life in the Caribbean. He bought the diveshop during what he later came to realize was one of the season`s only dry and sunny spells. As the deal was signed it started raining, and hasn`t let up since... In fact, the poor guy hasn`t been able to make a single dive at his shop due to the zero visibility caused by a constant stream of muddy river water pouring into the ocean. As any good California beach boy would say: "That`s a bummer, dude!"

At least the surf was fantastic :-)

We ended up just taking a long walk on the beach, watching the surfers and the few brave souls that were in their bikinis & shorts hoping for the sun to come out. The walk was gorgeous, and with the sun out it would have been impossible to do because of the heat.

The next day it was still raining on and off. Since we were clearly not going to get any beach time, we signed up to do a jungle tour visiting the Bribri Indigenous Reserve.

With a guide that for a change was really enthusiastic, the half-day tour turned out to be a lot more interesting than anticipated (although obviously very superficial due to time constraints). We were shown around a medicinal garden with remedies for such different things as diabetes, toothache & cramps as well as palms used to make fibers for weaving, cocoa beans (yummy!), numerous seeds and so on. During our visit it seemed like every plant in the jungle was useful for some thing or another, be it food, medicine, handicrafts or building materials. We then walked through the jungle to a waterfall where we had a refreshing swim, and visited an Iguana farm on the way back.

With fading tans and wet shoes we caught the bus to San Jose.