My Weekend in Cahuita

My first Costa Rica weekend excursion was a HUGE success! In a nutshell, the beach and jungle were beautiful, I got to see a three toed sloth in action at the national park, as well as a whole family of capuccin monkeys, we went snorkeling, and I got to spend some quality time in some hammocks!

The bus ride to Cahuita was about 4 hours long - so we did not get into Cahuita until about 8/8:30. But, while it was still light out, we got to see some beautiful countryside along the way.


There were seven of us who went: myself, Beth and Myla (who are the other student teachers here at PanAm's elementary school), and Bircka (sorry if I butchered your name, I'm not sure how to spell it!), Jillian, Sean, and John (the other four are all Spanish study abroad students at Conversa).

Our first night in we did not do much except for get dinner and go to the bars for a couple of drinks. Cahuita is a pretty small town - there were only two bars really and they were right across the street from each other. On our first night we met a guy who was traveling from France - he was very cool and gave us some insight on the area.

We stayed in the cabinas that Jillian's host family owns - practically right on the beach. It was really nice because the rooms only ended up being $26 for two nights!














On Saturday we got up early to watch the sunrise - which turned out to be very unfruitful because it was overcast. We went back to bed for a little bit before getting up again for breakfast and to head to the national park. We ate breakfast in a great Caribbean style restaurant that was known for having the best crepes in the area :)

After breakfast we headed to the national park - which at the time we did not realize committed ourselves to about a 5 hour walk through the jungle and beach...but it ended up being soooo worth it!

Throughout our walk in the park, which we were very lucky that it was mostly overcast and not really that hot, we saw: LOTS of crabs, birds, a three-toed sloth! (so exciting because they're usually rare to see), a whole family of Capuccin monkeys, a howler monkey, and, of course, we got to spend some quality time on the beach!


















The family of Capuccins literally just miuraculously appeared out of the woodwork right after we had got done talking about how we were disappointed that we hadn't seen any. They basically surrounded us, came right up to us on the path. I was honestly less than two feet away from a couple of them, and they just sat there checking us out - it almost seemed like they were more curious about us than we were of them! The whole time I kept thinking to myself "Adam is going to be sooo jealous!" I wished he was there with me for it, it was an amazing experience.










































Right when we got to the beach the sun started to come out - we got sooo lucky with the weather! It was overcast and not too hot for our walk through the park, and when we got to the beach we got the sun we wanted! :)




























After our 5 mile walk through the park and beach we were pretty tired - and definitely ready for some food! We headed back to Cahuita for lunch and some relaxation before getting ready to go to Puerto Viejo for the night. Puerto Viejo is a city about a 20 minute bus ride south of Cahuita, it's bigger and has more bars. We had dinner and quite a few drinks in Puerto Viejo before cramming all 6 of us (John didn't come) into a taxi back to Cahuita. We had one more drink and a little dancing before going back to the cabinas :)

Sunday we got up early to go snorkeling! Cahuita has a a very large coral reef. It was really cool, we were probably out in the water for about a hour. It was too bad though because the water was fairly murky because it had rained two days ago - Maimo (Jillian's host dad) said that in two days we probably would have had at least twice the visibility. But it was still cool, we saw a lot of different coral and fish.

We checked out at about 11:30 and John, Beth, Myla and I caught a bus to Limon at 12, and a bus from Limon to San Jose at 2. I was so exhausted from the weekend that I slept most of the way back, which made it a lot quicker! Having been using public transportation all weekend, I felt brave enough to try out the bus from Santa Anna to Belen all by myself, and I did just fine :)

Well, that was my weekend in Cahuita. I have a TON more pictures to show you all when I get home...but for my family's sake I didn't want to put too many on here and make it take 2 hours to upload :)

I love you all! And it looks like this coming weekend we're traveling to the Pacific beaches in Manuel Antonio - so more beautiful pics to come next Monday for sure! :)