Eaten by Tapirs

I don´t even know what day of the week it is...

I´m visiting Puerto Viejo right now, a little tourist town on Costa Rica´s Southern Caribbean coast. It´s hot. Really hot.

But also quite pretty and full of happy people. There´s endless reggae pouring from the handful of short buildings clustered in the town centre, and the Rastas who form the heart of Costa Rica´s small Anglophone culture are scattered everywhere, lazing in the heat. They´ve got the right idea. I shouldn´t be here at an internet cafe at the moment.

My folks arrived three days ago, and after discovering that their hotel had forgotten their existence and their reservation, they found a few nights lodging in San José with an old friend. We visited the city center and the small but quite entertaining amusement park in the suburban outskirts (where, sadly, I received sunburnt eyeballs... no fun, that). Yesterday we finally rocketed from San José, in a tiny rented SUV, to the coastal hamlet of Cahuita, a few kilometres north of Puerto Viejo. This part of the coast is festooned with coconut and banana trees so densely packed that the forest is about impenetrable. Starfruit, mangos and papayas litter the ground, growing too plentifully for the locals and tourists to devour them all. The beach sand is a dark volcanic grey, nearly black, and vast piles of torn fronds of the innumerable palm trees dampen the violence of the surf.

We´ve most of the time since arriving lazing about and eating, both of which Cahuita is spectatularly well-suited to. The Jamaican-inspired local cuisine is worlds away from the rice-and-beans blandness of the Central Valley where I live, so now I´m feasting on enormous portions of seafood and smoked chicken slathered in curry and peanut and coconut. Yay!

Having come to Puerto Viejo just to visit the bank, we´re back to Cahuita tonight, where we´ll spend another couple night sleeping and eating. I´m going to try to snorkel the local reefs tomorrow without being incinerated by the big evil fireball in the sky. Then, on Christmas day, we´re headed back to Ciudad Colon, where you´ll hear more from me.

In case I don´t post before then, you have my finest, happiest, most generous non-denominational wishes for a great holiday season. Spend it well!

posted by Paul @ 12:46 PM