A Broad Abroad

Mostly I just people watched while I was here. There was a futbol tournament going on in the late afternoon. An odd version of it tho, as it was played on a court as small as a tennis court (smaller actually, if you consider that tennis courts are bigger on account of the fact that they continue past the out-of-bounds line). They had 4 man teams and you can imagine that in an area that small the action is non-stop. I got to see the locals come out and it was really amazing to see what a melting pot it is: black, white and everything in between – with a healthy dose of the rasta spice.

Can’t say that I would have wanted to spend more time here. It’s got a big surfer-thing going on and they tend to be pretty cliquish. Did meet a couple of british guys visiting for the birding and we got to compare notes.

It starting pouring as I went to bed and continued all night. My plan was to catch the first bus for the border, which leaves PV at 6:30 am. When I awoke to hear it still pouring I had second thoughts but lept out of bed at the last minute to head for the bus. That was all for naught since I missed it. Imagine, in this land of phone outages and crappy roads the bus actually came and left 10 minutes early. D’oh! Since I’d already checked out of cabinas guarana (I recommend this place) I waited at the bus stop for 2 hours for the next bus.

I got curious about what “uva” was in spanish and it turns out to be “grape”. No wonder I like this place so much, it is named after that fabulous fruit that provides my elixir, vino tinto ☺.

My remaining days in punta uva were as lovely as the first. There were some nice folks staying in the other houses and roberto, of fort collins CO, gave me a lift on his scooter to manzanillo, the beach town at the end of the road (quite literally) along CRs carib coast. We had the mandatory beer at maxi’s restaurant, a manzanillo institution.

Manzanillo, tho with a nice beach and what I hear is some nice snorkling, is not much than that and I’m not sure I’d want to stay here long. Plus, the bike ride all along the stretch from puerto viejo (north) and manzanillo (south) is just lovely. Punta uva is about smack dab between those. If you do visit punta uva the short hike out to the point is really cool. Go past the punta uva beach bar and restaurant (which serves some yummy food) and find the trail. There are some earthen “stairs” that lead to a trail and it’s easy to find your way out to the rock point.

The next day I borrowed a bike from the casa and rode to playa cocles, a little closer to puerto viejo. This is a surfer beach but all along this stretch of coast there were these tucked-away little public accesses that lead to deserted beaches. Usually you’d just see a path into the jungle from the road and a sign reading “playa glardonada con la bandera azul ecologica”.

After 3 days in punta uva I left to spend a night in puerto viejo de talamanca before heading to panama. Puerto viejo is known as the party town along this coast so I was a bit curious to see more. I’d stopped there to grocery shop before heading to punta uva and it seemed pretty laid back.

Punta Uva, Costa Rica
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