Now we are experienced bus riders. Before getting in the one that will take us to Manzanillo, we buy a few things to eat and drink. Chill. Manzanillo has been recommended by our host in Cahuita who says there is not much tourism, mostly only locals go there, everyone else stops at Puerto Viejo, the touristy city of the area. The bus takes us there but we only go through.
During the way, we go again through kilometers of banana plantations, go through identitical villages which are coloured to the dominating agro-business brand of the area. They have cute houses, a school, playgrounds, even a resort that seems alongside the beach and a hostpital too. The workers seem to be able to go from craddle to dust in the same place, every infrastructure paid by the big company. The hospital is also branded with the corporate colours. A kind of green helle where diseases due to pesticides are presented as a norm to people who will never come out of this bubble. It seems like a Science-Fiction movie but here we see it passing in front of our eyes as the pesticide spreading plane seen last week is very present on our minds. Shivers. Our life project is opposite to this giants of the agro-business to which pursuit of profit seems to give them the right of life and death over these populations, who without being slaves on paper, seem to actually be it in reality.
Leaving this haunted vision behind us, we get off at a piece of beach decorated with coconut trees, dotted with hostels and rough accomodations along the road. The bus stops, after it is the jungle, it will have to make a U-turn and take up the road again a little further to continue to the boarder with Panama. Manzanillo seems to be like the poor little sister of Santa Teresa. It is quite expensive too but as is everywhere in Costa Rica. You can rent bathrooms for the day or longer, indicating that local tourism is present. Locals come with their families and their pick-nick/bbq and camp on the beach chilling. We find a hostel which is also a restaurant owned by a friendly israeli who explains what a relaxed life he has here. His brother is visiting from the US and is also very happy to be there and wonders why he continues to go back to that crazy busy modern life when he could stay and party every night with his brother. Costa Rica's east coast is caribbean, locals here are black of skin and with a quite different culture than in the center or west, it is more like Jamaïca here. Those we meet are cool, they have an easy smile and a way to speak which is mix of spanish and english. We have a good dinner at the restaurant of the hostel, the local chef is very proud of his cooking and with good reason. The room is simple but okay except from the shower which is way to humid. There is a little balcony on which we can relax with a view of the sea across the palm trees.
The next day, we are off for day trip to Punta Mona. Apparently you can go by boat or on foot through the jungle. We chose the jungle of course. Following the vague indications we found on trip advisor and with the hope of finding a clear trail, we risk it. At first it is a pretty classical park, very simple and beautiful, next to the sea. We get to a view point above the water and can see beautiful fishes swimming in the turquoise water down there. After that we go into the jungle. We quickly realise that the trails haven't been used for a while, there are enormous spider webs across our path. We end up with a stick handed up in front of us in order not to go right in with our heads. The spiders are big, not hairy but with legs that seem quite sharp and stripped in yellow and grey, they don't feel very welcoming. We move forward into the jungle progressively. We probably don't take the right trails but we end up reaching a farm that seems to recall a detail in the indications we read so we go alongside it. From there there is only one path so we take it and reach a place with abandonned houses, we decide to follow the coast since Punta Mona is on the sealine. A short while after here we are. We arrive by the beach. It is an ideal setting, we could make a movie here. A beautiful beach then a beautiful clearing where nice benches and tables are placed, surrounded by eddible plants of all kinds. There are beautiful wooden houses with huge opened platforms. A kitchen at the ground floor full of people chatting and smiling upon our arrival. We have to wait for Lala we are told. The person we had a few email exchange with prior our arrival. While waiting, I go back to the clearing and a young woman with long hair and a baby in her arms are going to give some food to a grey dappled horse who is sheltered in the shadows of some trees. Behind those trees there is an enormous basiliscus on a stroll. When coming back to the kitchen area, I see our first colibri, at first I think about an enormous insect buzzing at the corner of my eye but in fact it is a bird foraging for the nectar of a beautiful flower. I have the feeling that I am in a National Geographics dream. As soon as I saw it, as soon it was gone, the little bord will not be seen again. Lala welcomes us and we start the tour of the property with her.
It is pretty expensive. In fact everything is expensive at Punta Mona, that is what we had seen on the website and it had left us a bit perplexed for a place that promotes permaculture because such prices limit a lot the access to the place and/or its knowledge, hence us visiting for only one day. I don't know if it is because everything is expensive in Costa Rica or if it is because North American in general are used to paying so high for such things. One thing worth mentioning is that the place has been founded by one of the famous figures of permaculture in the US, there seems to be a price to pay for the branding, the consumer and monetized aspects of the place is a bother though the location is beautiful and Lala is explaining us a lot of things along our visit as we stroll through the garden of Eden. Everything or near everything can be eaten there. Lunch is excellent, prepared by the permanent residents of the place. After lunch, we go snorkelling a bit with masks that they lent us. It's beautiful, I love it and have fun following all the little coloured fishes and scaring them too. We meet a volunteer later on the beach, she is nostagic from her home in Colombia and her boyfriend even though she did manage to get used to the place, she is still looking forward to getting home.
Speaking about getting home, it is about time we do. The sun is setting down early and it's already 2pm, we plan about 2 hours with some margins to get home. Lala sets us on the start of the official path which we had not followed to get there and gives us a bit of indications. Let's go. With a stick in our hands as right at the begining we dunk below a gigantic spider web which nearly got us head on. The way starts with a fork. Great, we are already lost. Tom picks a way and move forward, we reach the water reservoirs, a good thing but then we are supposed to go straight and there is only right or left. We start left, go into the jungle, reach a huge bamboo grove, continue. Tom takes out his compass, I have a look, we are not going into the right direction at all. We insist anyway, go over some ground covered in dry banana leaves. It is full of ants that immediately start going up our shoes and attack. Alert! We run to get through to reach a barred trail, there is a bamboo branch clearly put there by human hands. Trail closed. We make a U-turn and run and try out another way. It seems the way isn't one actually, there is abrealy space to place our feet down. We go back on our trail. Crossing again the banana leaves running and reaching again the closed path, I suddenly see at the corner of my right eye, long yellow and greay stripped legs. My brain freezes and I start to scream like a damned soul. I have a spide in my hair and I know exactly what it looks like as we have seen so many of them and it was already pretty difficult to control my fear when I gave them a 1m berth to go around. I scream, I choke, I sob and I wriggle frenetically, I fall down on the ground. I am hysterical. I get right up. The spider isn't there anymore when finally Tom gets closer but I am crying and my heart is racing at 100 000 an hour. I can't calm myself down. He hugs me really tight. We are lost in the middle of the junggle and I am losing my mind right here. Finally I come down and we walk back. We get to the reservoir and try right this time, the path takes us back to the original fork! Tom doesn't realise it and starts to get pissed off, we start another way that brings us back to the reservoirs. Still can't go straight. It drives us mad, time is running and our margin before sunset is getting smaller by the minute. Soon we will have to decide whether to sleep at the farm or not because going through the jungle at night is not possible. Super pissed we go back to the farm, we will take the way we took when we got here in the first place, at least this one we know. There we go and we are walking fast, really fast, I gather myself and brace for it, we keep the rythm for more than an hour, walking briskly whether it goes up or down, in mud or on rocks. We stay aware for spiders and to avoid the big mud puddles that get our shoes stuck. We walk as if our survival depended on it, and it might not be so wring actually, in the middle of the jungle, we need to get back before sunset and most importantly not hurt ourselves nor get lost as we cannot slow down. When finally we get there, we have still an hour before sunset! The rapid and intense walk really calmed our spirits and my hysteria too. What an adventure!
The next day we leave again. During our visit of the Finca Coralina Vieja with Ramon, he tolds us about the merits of Bocas del Toro in Panama where he was working before. He painted us a beautiful picture of it and since our trip is nearing its end and that our relationship birthday is coming up, we think about going there for a great finish of this two months trip. We do have to cross another boarder but after the one of Nicaragua, it isn't really an issue anymore for us. Bus to start with for a change. At the boarder, a small shabby looking place to pay for the exit tax then official boarder office then cross over an old bridge where at the end of it armed officers. Paper control then we go to an official office again on the other side. We negociate a collective taxi price and wait for other passengers to join us. When we get to the pier for Bocas del Toro, it is a bit of a husstle but we end up in a small boats in between tourists and locals all mixed up. The arrival upon the island is beautiful, pretty and small buildings with quays over the water. We get off and start wandering about the city. Two young and smiling girls that we come across let us know the hostels they have found pretty passing in front of them. We go there. The first doesn't have a room and it is quite pretty as they described. The second has room but it's not very inspiring. Anyhow, we take it. Luckily, the common areas are very nice and there is a beautiful terrace at the top where we meet a Spanish guy whose parents have moved here a long time ago and who works here at the hostel and in a bar, it's his night off. He offers us some rhum cola and we chat. Super friendly. There is a common kitchen so we take the chance to cook. We meet a French couple (they are everywhere!) who left France to travel from Mexico till all the way down in Chili for about a year. They are super nice and we really get along so the next day we decide together to go to a beach I have been dreaming about since Ramon told us about it - Las Estrellas. We take a mini-bus to get there, the road is quite narrow and there is no space to walk along it and people drive by fast. Once there, our new friends show us how to open a coconut and we enjoy the delicious coco water and coco fruit itself. Nothing tastes bette than what you had to have a hard time opening it by oneself! We rented masks and they brought their own, but here you don't even need them to see the gigantic starfishe lying on the sand through the transparent blue water. It's beautiful and with the masks on there are even more things to see including even a beautiful ray. It's really great! The evening is very pleasant, on the hostel roof. We even have changed rooms to be in a better one upstairs, really much better.
The next day, we leave for another beach, a bit further into the island where Tom has booked us a luxury night for our anniversary. The room is at a very friendly old British couple who set up there on this beautiful beach. Other hotels have grown with restaurants but with discrete styles that keep the beauty of nature and the beahc intact. The place is great, the room beautiful and tastefully decorated, the hosts kind and adorable. The shower with hot water and bath products all locally made and based on coconut are incredible. A good restful place. In the evening we dine at one of the two restaurants, the most romantic one. It is very good and the waiter is nice. The next day we go for a walk in the nearby park. It is full of trails for quads but we go on foot. The landscapes are magnificent and there is a beach full of moray eels with weird colours and laguna with transparent blue water that deepens with the seemingly infinite depth of the water, full of small fishes. We are delighted and extremely thirsty at the end of the walk which we end at the beach bar and have nice refreshing beers together with a delicious wood-fire oven baked pizza. Delicious. In the evening, we take a rink with our hosts and let ourselves be tempted by a small cocktail realised with talent and then it is barbecue night at the next door restaurant. Tasy meat and again a very nice meal. This couple's anniversary is great from start to end. We go back to Bocas and to our hostel which we enjoy a lot and find our friends still there. We have a nice evening. The next day, Tom leaves for diving and I spend the day at the hostel chattinf it away. We feel good on this island! We leave it when the rain starts to fall. We need to get back to the boarder and start going up north to go take our plane.
We decide not to bother too much and go back to Cahuita to our nice host. We get our room back and spend there two nice days before getting on the road again to San JOse. We are not going to Tortuga in the end, too many transports to reach the place and too expensive to stay there. We are a bit over having to spend mountons of money each time and this park is famous for being very touristy. We avoid it. It will be San Jose for one last short night. We arrive early in order to find us a place to stay which isn't too ugly, find a nice place to eat and be as close as possible to the bus station for the airport. We have quite a difficult time finding a nice hostel, but we do find one, handled by locals. We go out to an asian restaurant not too far and quite chic. It's very good. We sleep a few hours and start for the bus stop. We walk and finally take a cab for the rest of the way. The bus terminal is empty. There is the night watchman. He is tico and we talk together, he tells us about his life and how hard it is in San Jose, how the Chinese and Americans have bought their country and how difficult it is to feed his little family. On this note, we go up a bus empty of tourists and full of locals off to work. It is 4:30am. At 5am we are in the airport. End of the trip.
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Punta Mona
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Pourquoi cultiver des arbres