Cahuita, Limón Province, Costa RicaCosta Rica's Caribbean - Cahuita
Driving
to Puerto Limon
this
90 km drive didn’t sound that bad, I mean it is the main Highway –
first through a lot of banana plantations (guess there will be no
shortage of bananas here) – and a lot of trucks (Puerto Limon is a
big container harbour too) and road construction: it looks like they
want to make it all a 4-way highway – but that also means that
there are a lot of construction is going on, that means we were very
slow... Paul passed as often as he could but each time another truck
came soon up in front of us.
Driving
into Puerto Limon you have to drive through the area where they have
all the huge containers sitting: you want Del Monte, Chiquita or
Dole... all is here...
Why are the Bananas in the blue bag?
- you want a Banana - it may comes from here: fields of fields with km after km of banana plantations: it was here in Costa Rica that the Banana industry was born
- the Bananas were imported from the Canary Islands by sailors during the colonial period
- The Bananas do not grow from sed but from a cutting from a plant (what kills one banana kills all - the whole plantations can be killed b one fungus, since the cuttings come all from the same plants)
- it is the nations 4th majore food industry and still the #1 agricultural export
- The bananas are in blue plastic bags (interestingly since Costa Rica is so into getting rid of plastic altogether)
- to protect the fruit from: black spots caused by leaves touching it or insects, they are all covered in blue plastic bags - we also read, that sometimes they are filled with a chemical, as well it helps that they ripen all at the same time
In
the dark along the coast
Finally
we reach the Coast – we can smell the air and glimpses of the ocean
at night, and here the road is awesome with sparkly lights in the
center and on the side... and so we finally reached our Hotel: a long
day we got up at 6.20 and now it is 6.30 and we were all the time
somewhere on the go.
Supper
made by Germans
we
didn’t want to drive to far for supper – I think we were tired.
So up the road after 200 m came a little restaurant “Bananas” and
what a surprise when we discovered that this is a German lady who
married a Costa Rican: that means we get German served food and then
it was time to relax at:
Chalet
Hibiscus
this
is the place we will stay the longest on our trip: 4 nights – our
relaxing reward at the end of the trip. Arriving so late no-one was
here at the reception, but a Spanish speaking guard, he gave us a
key, showed us the room and we could figure out that breaksfast is at
7 am.
After
shower we relaxed on our super cute little balcony. I think we were
choosing a perfect spot for our last relaxing days: a cute little
cabin with bathroom – a pink princess mosquito net over the bed –
huge wooden windows to open (no there is no glass around here) –
and a small balcony (covered which was great because it rained once)
with table, chairs and hammock... we can listen to the ocean crashing
into the coral reef, the garden, pool and ocean all in view.... we
are in the middle of nowhere but then it is only 3 km to the action
in town.
good
morning tropical weather
this
morning we woke up – 7 am. Once you always get up that early you
can’t sleep in anymore. We get some coffee and start the day out
very relaxed. And as it is in the tropical rainforest: this morning
we had clouds and some rain.... that means we start all slowly and
then at 10 am we see the blue sky time to check out Cahuita.
The
Afro-Caribbean town:
- It’s a laid-back charm, ramshackle villages along the coast with afro-caribbean culture
- In 1502 Columbus spent 17 days anchored off Puerto Limon at Island Uvita on his 4th voyage
- Because of the difficult nature of the terrain: croc-filled swamps and steep mountain slopes and the malaria from the fleets of mosquitos the Spanish avoided it
- It was the building of the railroad in 1871 bringing in also thousands of former Jamaican slaves in search of employment: it took nearly 20 years to built the 150 km long railroad to the Central Valley and the first 30 km cost 4000 men their lives.
- Black people were not allowed to vote or travel freely around Costa Rica until 1949: this led to the start of an independent culture with it’s own unique language: a Creole called Mekatelyu
How
long does it take to explore Cahuita
after
3 km gravel road we arrive in the town: one main street – 4 blocks
in length, that is what makes out this town. There is a paid parking
but there is also a lot of free parking along the street. Then we
walk up the “main street” - down towards the ocean and back up...
after we seen it all we head to the:
Cahuita
Nationalpark
this
is the first National park which is free, they do ask for a donation.
We went towards the beach because Paul wants a beach day – we are
not totally impressed because either you are under the trees in the
shade or in the water. But then we find a nice spot at Playa Blanca
and Paul is happy.
The
water has here a lot of rip currents, so we can’t go to much out to
enjoy it... but then we have other excitement in this park:
the
monkeys: we saw one really close eating and later we discovered every
time you hear a noise of something falling or rustling all you have
to do is look up and you will see a monkey
the
raccoon: they love to steel your chips... one came and went right
into the bag to pull an unopen bag of chips... as Paul tries to chase
him away he creeps up again and bites Gine in the toe (Paul didn’t
believe it, until he saw the raccoon biting a guy close by). So be
aware – Paul had later more raccoons coming and paying him a visit.
Walk
in the park: they have some nice trails here – so Gine follows it
along and had some great views on the beach and the palm trees. And
then she saw a sloth up in the tree having siesta: so all you can see
is one big furball.
After
some more swimming and enjoying the sun we decided to leave because
1st the clouds are coming and 2nd it is time
for coffee and 3rd they are closing the park at 4 pm (that
means we have to be out and we still have to walk back)
The
clouds come and we relax
and
the best thing to do after being salty is to jump in the pool and
then relax with a cup of coffee and check out what will we do
tomorrow.
Supper
with the Sloth
back
to town and we start to check out the restaurants: thanks to our
Kolbi card we can always check on tripadvisor on how the place
ranks... and so we end up at the #2 and that was a super awesome
choice because: it was a small familiy run restaurant with only 6
tables, super nicely set up, the meals were amazing in looks and how
they tasted and the best things was: Paul said what are those people
looking at – and then we saw the Sloth up on the telephone line –
like everyone else in the restaurant we jumped up and watched the
sloth moving along the telephone line – avoiding all the eletric
power lines. The owner told us that the sloth often uses the
telephone line to go from one tree to the other and he only uses the
telephone line he knows exactly which are the electric power lines
and avoids them...
I
think that was the best sloth experience ever!!
Waves
as background
Ending
the day off on our cute cabana balcony listening to the waves is a
perfect ending to a perfect day. Because we discovered only on
Saturday is live music in the Reggae bar (and today is Sunday).
Discoveries
along the Caribbean Coast
this
morning we had some sunshine... a perfect day for relaxing on the
Caribbean. They say one of the best beaches in Costa Rica is Playa
Punta Uva – so we decided to check it out. To reach it we had to
drive to Puerto Viejo.
And
on the way were three bakeries we wanted to check them out and we
ended up with banana bread, Banana chocolate cake and some other
chocolate sweet.
Puerto
Viejo: is a real backpackers – hippie - surfer – I’m a cool
dude - pary town. And you see a lot of people going around on
bicycles. Overall we thought the town was a little bit run down and
it didn’t totally impressed us, but we found:
an
old ship barge sitting in the water with a tree growing on it – and
a sailboat which saw better times, as it looks like hanging on the
sand I don’t think it is going anywhere. A lot of surfboards and
then we came to the turn off to:
Playa
Punta Uva
a
short gravel down the road and see there we found a parking right at
the end (and as we discovered later we were very lucky to be here
early, when we came back the cars nearly lined up to the road).
So
one thing we discovered here in Costa Rica: it is an awesome country
with a lot to do – they do have some nice beaches, but clearly this
is not a country to come and hang out or swim on a beach. This one is
one of the top 10 of Costa Rica: it is like most of the beaches here
a surfer beach with a lot of waves. Paul set up for Suntanning –
Gine did somoe walking along the beach – together we jumped in the
waves and we watched the Sloth: Paul was lucky enough to see the
sloth climbing up from the water on the tree – when Gine came back
it was sleeping and resting....
After
a day of lots of sun and fun on the beach we went back and
Gine
looses the food and Paul needs food
When
Gine said my stomach cramps and I’m not feeling well – because
Paul got hungry like every evening: he went alone to town for supper
and on the way back saw another sloth on a telephone line, as where
Gine stayed back – had two diarrhea attacks and some puking and a
then it got slowly better during the night (but once you don’t
sleep a lot, you are tired) – we were wondering where it came from:
maybe one of our water bottles is contaminated – so all went into
the garbage or maybe we had to much hot sun.... - I mean you can
forget how hot it is when you are at the ocean
The
Playa with the sloths
Gine is still tired and Paul wants some more sun – so we decided to
go to a close by beach and were choosing Playa Negra – called like
that because of the greyish looking sand, but we call it the Playa
with the sloth: because we went down and found the perfect spot a
little tree with half shade and in there was a sloth. And as we went
to pick up our beach bag... we discovered another sloth.... a few
hours relaxing in the sun and then we are ready for a cup of coffee
and hang around our cabin and the pool with ocean view and wave sound
the
best Pizza in town?
We decided to have the best pizza in town in a building which is so
unlike Costa Rica: White brand new - modern stylish... so out of
character and then the typical Italian pizza. But the best thing was
on the way home we stopped because we saw a sloth at a pole climbing
slowly up and then down and over the grass towards a tree...
Good
bye Caribbean Coast
last night it rained and with already a very humid salty air – it
was super humid – that means everything is kind of moist... so Gine
says: no packing -all packing happens tonight. Everything went into
the car and with the clouds overhead (which made it perfect for
driving) we went up the Caribbean coast – had some last glimpses of
the ocean – through the container road and we are on the way
heading home.
2025-05-23