20 beach days in Costa Rica
Our time in Costa Rica has definitely hugged the coasts. What did we learn...even beach days can feel busy (crazy how context and perspective change when your reality does).
Puerto Viejo
Continuing up the Caribbean coast our first stop was Puerto Viejo, where we based ourselves for a week. We rode our bikes leisurely along the flat coastline each day to explore the multiple beaches with our favourites being Playa Uva and Playa Manzanillo. The area had a truly laid back feel - inducing relaxation and a sense of freedom. Highlights include:
Swimming in the ocean during a massive storm, feeling more relief in the water than out, given the intensity at which the rain poured down.
Having beers and ‘alcopops’ (haha) in the street watching the amazingly colourful, vibrant, loud festival pass us by (this was an annual festival in the town celebrating Afro-Caribbean culture). We particularly loved the contagious beats pumping out of massive sound systems in the cars in the parade.
Sámara
We then took a bus from ‘coast to coast’, heading to the Pacific side to an amazing little town called Samara. Chosen completely on a whim a few days prior, this little surf town was a complete winner, by far our favourite to date. We stayed right on the beach front and spent many hours in the hammocks on the sand outside our door watching the waves crash in and admiring the frequent cow and horse passers by. All the while, Chris continued to improve his surfing skills on the ideal swell.
Playa Protrero
We headed 2.5 hours up the coast next to Playa Potrero. This place had a completely different feel, unfortunately being largely bought out by rich Americans. The scene was huge condos on every vantage point, American owned and focused bars and restaurants with prices 2-3 times that of Samara, and a general lack of Costa Rican culture. It’s a hard/interesting one...tourism and ex-pat dollar obviously have modernised the area and stimulate the economy, but also has stripped the culture.
Regardless, the beaches were beautiful, with Playa Conchal being the prettiest (but also the one where the big resorts were), we liked Playa Prieta as it was secluded and there were only ever a handful of people there! We also took advantage of the mod-cons the area brought, lucky enough to have the US Open on a sports channel to watch in our Airbnb...our first TV in nearly 2 months.
To keep us from going insane we hired a car for a day, the plan being to escape the area for a short period by any means, and boy are we glad we did. We decided to drive up towards the Volcano national park for a walk to a waterfall called Rio Celeste. What a beautiful waterfall (and walk through the cloud forest), famous for it’s sparkling blue water, caused by a mineral combination from two seperate rivers further up stream (see the photo below where the water just turns from clear to bright blue).
Finally, the sunsets across the pacific will be hard to forget, every evening we would have a sunset swim and admire the setting of the all powerful sun.
