Puerto Viejo

Friday morning I woke up at 4:30am so that I could meet five others at a park near by to catch a taxi to take us to the bus station. I had no idea when the sun came out until Friday. The stars were still out as I left my house and I was definitely nervous to be walking in the dark by myself for 7 minutes. In order to make myself feel safer I held onto my key chain that has a small pocket knife on it. (There was recently a robbery in my neighborhood where someone was held at gunpoint..so I had reason to be a little worried)

When we got to the bus station there were not many other people there. Our bus was scheduled to leave at 6:00, by 5:45 the area was full of travelers with surfboards and large backpacks. Almost everyone had a heavy duty camping backpack full of their clothes. Two boys who are studying near San Jose sat in front of Jessica and I on the bus. We only talked to them long enough to realize that one was from Holland and the other was from Brazil. They were going to Puerto Viejo to enjoy the waves and also staying at Rocking J's Hammock Hostel. After we had been in the bus for a couple hours the boy from Holland started talking to an older local man who was sitting across the aisle from him. I practiced my listening comprehension by eavesdropping on them (because everyone else was asleep and I had not brought my ipod with me). To my great surprise I was able to understand a lot of what they were saying! I learned that the boy from Holland (I later found out his name is Yurit) can speak five languages fluently! Needless to say, I felt unaccomplished after hearing this.

Upon arriving in Puerto Viejo we were greeted by those who had left the night before from our group in San Jose. Everyone told us how much they loved being there and how friendly the locals were. The Rocking J's is a collection of art everywhere. The place is covered with beautiful mosaic tiles and paintings on every surface. Unfortunately I do not have pictures because we were warned that Puerto Viejo was "muy peligroso" (very dangerous), so I decided to leave my camera safely tucked away in a drawer at my Tica house.

Saturday we watched a surfing competition at a beach that was a ten minute bike ride down the road from the hostel. Biking was definitely an experience. We rented our bikes for 3,000 colonnes from a lady who kept calling us "mi amor". This translates into paying about $6 to have the bikes for two days! Our group of six definitely got the best deal! The bikes were road bikes with baskets in the front. The roads were not designed for road bikes; they were littered with pot holes. It was necessary to pay close attention to where the bike was going to navigate on a level path. Many people had their chains fall off or get caught in their bikes. The locals were very nice and helped us fix the broken bikes. I even learned how to fix the chain myself!

Being in Puerto Viejo was very different from being in Manuel Antonio. Manuel Antonio is a much more family friendly beach resort destination. Puerto Viejo was full of backpackers and young travelers from the UK. The beaches were not as pretty-but still nice. There was a lot of coral in the ocean and a few of us cut up our feet from swimming.

It was a wonderful feeling to come back to my Tica house and have dinner with my host family once the weekend was over.