Cahuita – Day 7
After another lovely breakfast, James and I decided to take Colonie for a walk. You can read more about Colonie here. We walked pretty far down the beautiful beach and watched Colonie romp in the water, lay down in the water, sit in the water, roll in the sand, and just run around. He was so happy to be on the beach, and I know he will be so happy once the fence is finished around the property.
Andrea came by and said that someone pointed out a three-toed sloth to them, so we ran down the road to check it out. Sure enough, a sloth with a baby was slowly climbing up a tree. Jay had binoculars so we were able to get a better look at her, and it was very interesting. Sloths are such crazy creatures…seeing one like that was insane.
Jay and Andrea had decided to go to Cahuita National Park and asked if we wanted to join them. Cahuita was on my must-see list, so we were eager to go. There is a public bus that runs to Cahuita every hour from Puerto Viejo (about $1.50 USD/pp) so we got some snacks and waited at the bus stop up the road from Banana Azul. James’ feet were SUPER BURNT from our day at Playa Carrillo, so he had on his hiking boots and we sat and waited while Jay and Andrea explored around the bus stop. Here’s a picture of the sunburn – and he even put SPF 50 on his feet…it must have rubbed off. Note: These pictures were taken on the 16th, and we went to Carrillo days before. That’s how bad the sunburn was!
The bus ride to Cahuita was pretty short (maybe 20 minutes), and we arrived in the early afternoon. Cahuita National Park is just a few blocks from the bus stop and that’s where we headed. The park requests a donation for entrance, and we signed a guest book. The path through the park parallels the beach in many parts, so we had beautiful views of the Caribbean sea while walking in the lush jungle. In order to spot more wildlife, many people hire guides, but we didn’t even ask about it. We heard stories of friendly monkeys and were pretty confident we’d see some things on our own.
Note: If there is someone selling fresh fruit at the entrance to the park, I highly recommend that you buy some. We had the fresh pineapple and it was amazing!!!
The walk was so gorgeous…so many things to see and hear. We saw huge ant hills, crazy tree limbs bent every which way, stunning views of the ocean…
The jungle path:
Beautiful beach:
Crazy bent trees:
We had gotten ahead of Jay and Andrea, and when they caught up, they said there was a white-face monkey not far from where were were. James and I went back, and we saw him run across the path. There were some kids chasing him, so the monkey ran under some thick brush and I saw him peeking out. I don’t think he was afraid really…he just didn’t like the kids. This is the closest I’ve EVER been to a monkey in the wild. It was really cool.
We kept walking, and saw a sloth (it was really hard to get pictures of the sloths since they are always far up when we saw them) which was moving much faster than the one we saw in Puerto Viejo. We could hear howler monkeys and really hoped we’d be able to see some of them. At one point, we had monkeys all around us in the jungle. Only one or two came close to us, but we could see them swinging in the trees and see the trees bending and moving all around us. There was one monkey who was very curious and is obviously used to humans (and probably wanted fruit):
We finally made it to the point and sat down for a while. There are coral reefs right off of the beach, but in the park, it is mandatory to have a guide. We had already decided to try snorkeling in Manzanillo the next day, so we were content to sit for a bit before heading back.
The boat you see was used to take people out to snorkel; that’s how close the reef is to the shore.
On the way back, we ran into another friendly monkey. We’re not sure if it was the same as before…I’ll have to do a comparison!
There were a couple of paths built and they were unusual because they were made entirely of recycled plastic! I think it is brilliant idea.
We decided to walk on the beach once the path split, and Andrea, Jay, and I went swimming for a few minutes to cool off. The water was beautiful and very refreshing. As we walked back to the park entrance, we saw a bunch of howler monkeys in the trees, but they wouldn’t come close to us. They were really interesting and were making all kinds of noise and jumping around the trees on the beach. If I were a monkey, I’d totally mess with tourists on the beach…I’d throw stuff at them for sure.
We got back into the town of Cahuita, and after a frustrating walk around town (we wanted seafood…one place didn’t tell us until we were there for 20 minutes that they didn’t have any shrimp and we walked around for a while), we finally settled on a restaurant that was right outside the park. It was perfect. We noticed a parrot at the entrance of the park and people laughing, so Jay, Andrea, and I went over to check him out:
I’m also working on a video where you can hear him say Hola, Hello, reply to questions, and make fun of my laugh. He was hilarious. We were cracking up for a long time.
The restaurant was built around a tree, and someone had carved a part that stuck out:
We had the best garlic shrimp and it was so nice to relax and eat some good food with a beautiful view of the water. We took the bus back to Banana Azul (there is a bus stop at the end of the dirt road by Banana Azul – about a 10 minute walk). Andrea and Jay needed water and some other things, so they walked into town, while James and I walked back to Banana Azul. I was a little nervous because parts of the road are 100% pitch black and someone had been mugged on that road before (the robber only got $20 and a cheap camera and did not hurt the person). I had a big rock with a pointed tip in my hand the whole walk; we didn’t know what we would encounter! James said he’s never seen me walk that fast but I was on a mission. I was also unsure of what was really in the jungle…we had the jungle on both sides of us so it was a little freaky, especially in the dark!
Once we got back, we relaxed and read, played with the kittens, and decided to go to bed.
Happy Valentine’s Day!!!
Tags: Cahuita, Travel
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