Miss Maps Goes Solo

What a life saver the caribbean coast is. What is it about this coast line? Belize, Livingston in Guatemala and now here, they all do something to me.

Cahuita is a tiny town 4 hours from San Jose. The locals are mainly black Creole and English speaking rastas and the atmosphere is seriously laid back, my hotel constantly stank of weed.

Cahuita cured the loneliness I´d been feeling in the rest of Costa Rica. On Saturday night I went for a post-dinner drink in Coco´s, one of the two bars in town. A bunch of friendly, crazy Canadian expats and their local mates adopted me and I had a great night drinking, chatting, dancing salsa. The Canadians even tried to convince me to run out on my hotel and go in stay in the property they´re doing up (if you´re reading this guys, so sorry I didn´t make it over, monster hangover, will email you soon though).

Anyway, the next morning I crawled out to the local cafe for some rehydrating orange juice and hangover curing gallo pinto (rice and beans) only to find some of the locals from the night before were there too, downing a few local beers at 8.30 in the morning, hardcore.

Once the hangover subsided I wandered around the national park, a beautiful stretch of jungle backing on to a beach. The howler monkeys were fantastic, I even saw one with a baby attached to her tummy. This really ticked off the list one of those things I´ve always wanted to do, lie on a white sand beach backed by a jungle full of wildlife.

At some point during my time here a mosquito ate my face. Unlike normal people, I can´t feel it when they bite me, I´d love to swat the little buggers if only I knew when they were there. Sometimes if I see one flying around I hold out a limb in the hope that he´ll take the bate and I can whack him, never works. So I now have bites on my forehead, eyelid, end of my nose (attractive) and about 5 along my jaw line, I feel like I´m made of Benadryl.

I was sad to leave Cahuita, if I were to ever pack it all in and head for some tropical paradise (which by the way I have no intention of doing) it would be to somewhere like that. I can´t wait to return one day.

Now I´m back in the capital and doing a few errands before flying to Ecuador. I just had great fun miming the need for motion sickness tablets in the pharmacy!

The next update may not be for a while but it should be a good one with some serious photos of the Galapagos.

Take care all and thanks for reading.

So, Costa Rica, what a culture shock. The kids go to school, heathcare is free, you can walk around the capital without fearing for your life, you can even drink the tap water.

Such a laid back country that unlike the rest of Central America, they only once got a bit carried away and fought with themselves in the 1940s. It was over within a year. The Costa Rican president in the 80s even got a nobel peace prize for helping Nicaragua sort themselves out during the war torn Sandinista era.

My first stop was Playa Tamarindo on the pacific coast. A beautiful long stretch of white sand big enough to get away from the tourists. The town (one dusty main road) is awash with overpriced souveniers, pizza places and realty agents. Many Americans have brought holiday property here but the businesses are run by Argentinians and Italians. According to the lovely Argentinian landlady of my hostel, it would take 5 Costa Ricans to do 1 persons job because they´re so lazy!

I was really on my own here, not sure why, maybe because I find it hard to relate to surfers. So I chilled on the beach, ate pizza, did some errands and left for the capital after a couple of days. San Jose is actually a pretty decent capital with some great museums and galleries. My hostel, for $9 per night, even comes with its own swimming pool!

With a real sense of killing time before doing the Galapagos next week, I decided to leave my big pack in the hostel for a couple of days and try out the caribbean coast.

Random observation: in Mexico and Guatemala cemeteries are extremely colourful and so packed with elaborate tomb stones that you practically have to clamber over them to get through. In Costa Rica, the tombs are white tiled affairs making them look like fields full of 1920s bath tubs. Either way, none of them are like the horror film set things we have back at home.