Costa Rica: Ever sweeter in Cahuita

With 50% of our party still completely abuzz at the previous days retail therapy in the name of Reef Fanning flip flops and the other half irascible due to the nocturnal habits of our French neighbours, we made good our escape from the city and headed once more for the Caribbean.

If we've learnt anything about ourselves over these past months it's that these tepid waters and golden sands are what really does it for us. There's a much more laid-back vibe there compared to where we've been on the Pacific side and it's also a Brucie Bonus that the water isn't wont to pound you to within an inch of your existence either.

There were a couple of places to choose from really, Cahuita or Puerto Viejo de Talamanca and after careful consideration of the scant information available to us we took a punt on Cahuita.
The bus station was only a few blocks away so we took Shank's Pony, my case catching my heel on every fourth step and flipping over onto its wrong side whenever one wheel or the other was confronted by even a microscopic obstacle.

My mood was dark anyway because of a lack of sleep. I'd nodded off all well and good at about 2200 last night but was awoken at 0325 by next door who seemed to be checking out early to catch a flight. The couple and their seven or eight year old daughter made an inordinate amount of noise considering the ungodly hour, mother sneezing, daughter gabbling and father spending about 15 minutes summoning  phlegm from somewhere around his ankles by the sound of it before theatrically discharging it into the sink cum spittoon.
Sneezing you can forgive (although I defy anyone not to want to strangle the protagonist after listening to 25 or more straight off) but the child should either have had a sock stuffed in her mouth or told that if she doesn't shut it she'll be wing-walking back to Charles de Gaulle. As for Monsieur Mucus, one can only guess at how that sounded from within their room when through the wall it sounded like someone was hoovering up jelly.

The bus station raised our spirits somewhat though. No grimy street corner or chaotic market place for Costa Rican buses. No sir, they have a proper bus station with signs and indicators so you can see what's going on without relying on young men shouting incoherencies at 300 mph.
There was our bus stop, next bus at 1000 - 20 minutes time and there's the ticket office window.
"Two tickets to Cahuita please"
"Standing room only on the 1000. Seats available on the 1200".

Hmmmmm. A tricky decision. Stand up for four hours or sit and wait for two and a half before we even get going. After a quick conflab we decided we'd go for the standing tickets, at least we'd feel we were on the move and we could always sit on our packs.
We weren't alone in having standing tickets, there were about ten of us in all and two of them decided that standing or even sitting on the floor wasn't for them; they lay prostrate in the aisle and even appeared to nod off - a triumph of self interest over decorum.

It was even more of a relief than usual to arrive at our destination and it caught us somewhat unawares as we pulled into the unpaved bus station at Cahuita.
I shoved my iPhone into my pocket with earphones dangling down and went to the hold to get our cases. I had to bend down to get them out and when I had successfully done so I stood in the hot sun aware of a non-Kerry shaped presence to my left. In the space of half a second I saw he had a bag, that he was putting an iPhone in his bag, that this must be my iPhone and had retrieved said iPhone from his bag with an accompanying "Oi, getcheranzoffmefone".

It all happened so quickly I honestly don't know whether he pick-pocketed me or whether I'd dropped it and he was opportunistically helping himself to it. Whichever it was I know that I was a hairs breadth away from losing probably the second most important thing I have after my passport. I can state quite categorically that I couldn't give a monkeys if I lost my main pack and if I lost Kerry, well, I'm sure she'd turn up safe and sound somewhere.
No, if I lost my iPhone it would be the end of this blog, no keeping tabs on the footy, no emailing my old mother each week, no scrabble, no facebooking to keep in touch with the lamb chops, no camera and no iPod.
It just doesn't bear thinking about and I genuinely felt Tom and Dick for an hour afterwards as I considered how close I'd come to my personal doom.

We found an absolute belter of an hotel right on the beach with wonderful sea view and balcony after a quick search around the village and after checking in went straight out to cool our boiling selves in the Caribbean.
The beach was a classic tropical paradise with thick jungle providing the backdrop to the golden sand. Palm trees and banana plants were leaning out to try to outdo each other in the quest to gain as much sunlight as possible.
It felt like we'd been parachuted into Utopia and was very much another feather in Costa Rica's cap as far as we were concerned.

The beach was about four kilometres long so we went for a walk about halfway up it to stretch our legs. On the way back we were just approaching a group of people when some howler monkeys in the trees nearby began to roar, sending all of us into reflexive spasms of terror before we realised what it was. These monkeys sound like jaguars or leopards and come dusk they start to get agitated and.......go ape.

The village was really quaint; one paved road about 300 yards in length and four unpaved roads leading off it, enough restaurants to give some choice but not too many, a couple of bars, two mini-supermarkets and a handful of hotels. It was compact, safe, warm and friendly. Suffice to say we loved it.

The Cahuita National Park entrance was next to our hotel and takes the form of an 8.3km walk inside the jungle which skirts the beach.
We set out on Saturday morning and had a thoroughly enjoyable three or four hours hike interspersed with animal spotting.
The fauna seemed to come in waves with crabs first up - big, horrible blue and red ones scuttling about all around us, then we saw a couple of snakes, one deadly viper, then it was into spider-land.
Much as we both abhor spiders and almost came to freezing on the spot when surrounded by them and their webs it was somehow therapeutic to be able to observe them at very close quarters. I think our imaginations were beginning to run wild so to see some in the wild, black and yellow striped legs and all, wasn't such a bad thing in retrospect.

After the spiders we were treated to about a dozen howler monkeys putting on a show for us, eating fruits, swinging about and trying to position themselves directly above to perform who knows what mischief on us.
They're amusing to watch but you've got to be wary around them, particularly  when there's a possibility of being shit on from a great height. Once in this lifetime is quite enough thank you!

The last thing we saw was a raccoon, sitting on the trunk of a palm tree extending out towards the sea as though posing for National Geographic.

We caught the bus back to town once we'd completed the full route and then spent the rest of our time there relaxing, lounging on the beach and declining the kind offers of the local populace to purchase marijuana.

We absolutely loved Cahuita. It had the perfect set-up for us as described earlier and our time in Costa Rica has been some of the most memorable of the trip so far. Also, I wasn't bitten once by anything during our time here - a first!
The only regret we have is that we haven't seen any colourful birds in the wild: toucans, macaws or parrots, which is surprising, we thought they'd be everywhere.
Perhaps Panama can sate that desire in us?