Published on March 23, 2008

Puerto Viejo

Once we were convinced we won’t get any better at surfing overnight, we decided to change base and try the Caribbean side and though this meant crossing the entire country with only guide book maps, we thought, well, how difficult and long could it really be? Well, 14 hours long, and the difficult part was not so much getting there, but getting through San Jose.
Though the first part of the trip was pretty uneventful, once we got to San Jose, we spent at least 3 hours trying to get out of it and make our way through Limon to Puerto Viejo.

There is no beltway around San Jose, no way you can cross from East to West or North to South without having to go through it. Once in it, no street names, no street numbers, no indicators pointing you to the other main cities in Costa Rica.

I guess everyone in Costa Rica must have an inborn sense of direction or internal GPS. We managed to get on the right road but were turned around by the police because there was a landslide and no one would clear it until the next morning.

Stopping at each gas station on the way back to ask for directions we dreaded when everyone told us we had to go through the city again and only 2 hours later we finally got our bearings. The problem repeated every time we entered a relatively big town (classified as 100+ houses and more than one road): they would have an indicator pointing straight down the road; we would follow it only to reach a dead end that usually had another indicator but only for San Jose.

The frustration I guess is what kept us up until 2am when we finally reached Puerto Viejo and had to sleep in the car on the beach because everything was closed already. It wasn’t a bad sight to fall asleep to: the moon reflecting in the ocean with a few wisps of clouds obstructing the view and the white sand that seemed a more inviting headrest that my car seat.

I woke up because of the heat invading the car started to be oppressive and realized we couldn’t have picked a better spot to drive 14 hours to. Playa Cocles where we later found out we were, was indeed a Caribbean beach; the same white, soft sand, the same clear turquoise water and just enough waves to keep in interesting as I had first seen in Dominican Republic.

Between riding our rented bicycles between beaches, boogie boarding, surfing and snorkeling at Punta Uva, Cocles and Cahuita, and long happy hours (yes, they do call them happy hours) in Puerto Viejo with our feet practically in the water, we settled for a few days in this slower paced life.

A life where most things still revolve around sunrise and sunset but its usually because the surfing times can not be missed or that the fish nets need to be brought up at certain times. People are not in as much of a hurry, they are nice to you just because you crossed their path, problems don’t get discussed and no one stays a stranger for too long.

Puerto Viejo was much more vibrant than Mal Pais, you tripped on restaurants and bars at every step, you couldn’t get away from people even if you tried and though we had four days here, I wanted another week. I dreaded the 6am wake-ups the Monday through Friday routine, the hurried weekends you can’t pack enough "me" time in and the fleeting thoughts of the "next vacation destination." But, I guess that’s what makes it all worth it, they are fleeting but memorable, unpredictable but worth waiting for.

We finished the two weeks in San Jose, on the hostel rooftop overlooking a city big enough for 2.5 million people, wondering the same thing I always do: "I wonder if I’ll see this again. Probably not… Next!"