Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, Costa Rica

Aca estamos todavia en Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, mas precisamente entre la playa Cocles y la playa Chiquita, en Costa Rica. Estamos pasando los dias en la playa, mirando los pecesitos y corales con el equipo de snorkel, tomando cerveza, y cocinando cosas ricas (Mauricio, los pejivalles estan muy buenos) y mirando los osos perezosos colgados de los arboles - la verdad es que es como mirarnos a nosotros mismos en un espejo, porque estamos como ellos ultimamente! Pura vida! El pueblo es MUY tranquilo, y todos van a paso de tortuga, en bici para todos lados y con una onda medio rasta. La historia de esta parte de Costa Rica es muy intersante porque hasta hace relativamente poco tiempo, fue un lugar muy aislado con el resto del pais, y es por eso que se formo una comunidad de gente traida desde Jamaica para trabajar, y tambien trajeron a muchos chinos que vinieron a trabajar en la via del tren (que por muchos anios fue lo unico que unia esta zona con el resto). Ahora, es un lugar bastante turistico (con muchos gringos – y esta todo escrito en ingles, muy raro) pero de una forma mas tranquila que en otros lugares, con mucha naturaleza que lo hace muy lindo porque la selva llega hasta la playa donde hay muchos lugares protegidos. Tambien se forman muchas piscinas naturales entre las rocas y corales donde se quedan atrapados hasta que sube la marea, muchos animalitos como caracolitos, cucarachas de mar, pecesitos, etc. Asi que nos pasamos buscando y mirando en ellas cada vez que podemos. Suzanne y Quique dicen que tenemos suerte, porque llegamos justo cuando comenzo a hacer calor y a no llover (ellos vinieron en enero y llovio casi todo el tiempo). Hace un par de semanas ellos vieron a un perezoso caer de un arbol al agua, y le sacaron fotos mientras el pobrecito se “apuraba” para trepar a otro arbol! Aca hay muchos animales por todos lados, incluyendo un gato precioso (medio siames, pero con pelo largo) que vive en el techo, muchos lagartos de todo tipo y tamanios, aranias, y dos murcielagos que vienen a “estacionarse” aca abajo del quincho todos los dias, para despues salir de noche a comer. Tambien tuvimos bastante accion con monos ahulladores en los arboles arriba nuestro hace un par de noches y parecia que estaban gritandonos en los oidos! Hace unos dias salimos en la camioneta todos juntos a ver otra playa, al lado de una reserva natural llamada Mandoca-. Pasamos mas que bien, pero en un momento decidimos llevar la camara al agua y no sabemos como, pero dejo de funcionar abajo del agua – le entro agua o algo asi y entonces nuevamente estamos sin camara! Otra vez estamos muy bajoneados porque cada dos minutos vemos oportunidades impresionates para poder sacar fotos. Por suerte, Suzanne y Quique nos estan prestando el uso de su camera hasta poder comprar una nueva (probablemente en el duty free cruzando a Panama).. Well, here we are in Costa Rica, close to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca on the Caribbean side. We spend our days on the beach, snorkeling, swimming, exploring, hanging out with the kids, cooking, drinking beer, and checking out our neighbors the three-toed sloths who literally hang out in the trees and who we can totally identify with in our own slothiness…..This whole place is very relaxed, and people ride their bikes all over the place at a very slow pace. The history of this part of the country is very interesting, as until recently it was very isolated from the rest of the country - at one point Jamaican slaves were brought here to work as well as Chinese immigrants brought here to build the railroad (sound familiar?). Apparently until as late as 1948 or something the Black population was physically confined to this area, not able to move about freely in the rest of Costa Rica! People generally speak English, the signs are all in English, and it has a very Caribbean feel in food, language and other cultural aspects. These days there is a lot of tourism here, and there are more gringos than locals around it seems! But it is still very nice, because there is a lot of nature around and a lot of protected areas which makes it very jungly and full of all kinds of animals. We all have a great time exploring the tide pools that form out front and trap all kinds of neat creatures until the tide rises again. Gustavo has even rigged a fishing system up! The other night we had a bunch of howler monkeys in the trees above us, and it sounded like they were screaming in our ears! The house that Suzanne and Quique are renting is great, right on the beach and surrounded by jungle. They even have a beautiful cat living on the roof (he won’t come down and even has to be fed up there) and a couple of bats who “park” up under the roof every day to rest before heading out to hunt every night. There are tons of lizards, spiders and other miscellaneous creatures crawling around all over the place – you just get used to finding them everywhere! We saw a barracuda yesterday in the water. Apparently we are very lucky because before now it has been raining constantly since Suzanne and Quique got here in January. A couple of weeks ago they saw a sloth fall out of a tree (apparently it happens all the time!) and into the water, so they watched him crawl out and “rush” to climb up a tree! The other day we all took a trip in the Westy over to a beach down the way, right beside a nature reserve and at the end of the road before Panama. It was beautiful there and we had a great time until we decided to take the waterproof camera into the water and discovered that it is not really waterproof at all (or at least not always)! Some water got in or something and we are now camera-less once again! Luckily Quique and Suzanne are lending us the use of their camera (and some pictures that they took before we got here!) until we can get ourselves a new one, probably at the duty free on the Panama border (hopefully). Needless to say it will be a cheapo kind because we are truly cursed when it comes to cameras…We will be here for another few days, until we head over to Panama and start to do the paperwork for shipping the westy to Colombia. We have already made initial contact with a shipping company, but unfortunately, we once again have bad timing and it will be semana santa (Easter week) and all the offices will be closed, so we are thinking of heading over to the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama for a couple of days with Al's friend Anthony while we wait out the holidays. Hopefully in the interim we can find someone who wants to share a shipping container with us. Al told us that the San Blas Islands are the most beautiful place in all of Central or South America (and he’s been everywhere!) so we are excited to check them out. Ari really wants to go there because he has read up on both the Kuna Indigenous people that live there and the great snorkeling opportunities, and so we are thinking of taking him there as a kind of birthday treat…. too bad we don't have that underwater camera anymore, but -- hey --I guess that's life!