Atiuhac Nature Resort Cahuita

... beauty of the black volcanic sand beach, a rugged and wild piece of nature, laced with Palms and driftwood.

I had planned to stay 2 nights here having caught up with Yuka, a Japanese girl previously met at La Tortuga Feliz, instead with the rain falling and a cosy hammock swinging under the eaves of my wooden cabin I stayed 4 awaiting the arrival of another friend Alessandra.

... nothing special to comment on. Most places had bars on windows which indicated some seediness but the people themselves seemed nice. It had a lot of American fast food restaurants like Denny's, Subway, Pizza Hut (RESTAURANTS!) and Taco Bell. We went to the market which was quite cool, had a great coffee at a café and realised we were at quite a disadvantage with our meagre Spanish. We couldn't know any less really. Take away our 'Hola' and its back to mime. Ah ...

... wink) I´ll do it for half price" for our desired bus. As it was a local bus with no seat numbers. This didn´t make sense. Argument ensued. Pointing, gesticulating. We refused to pay anyone bar the surprised driver of the new bus that had arrived and continued. The boarder with Panama was great. An old disused railway bridge over a large river. The queue was immense. But we entertained ourselves with the 'revelutionary' group from ...

... the cacao over a wood fire. It's pretty amazing. When Luis dropped me off, the weather had cleared a bit so I walked into the village to have lunch. Cahuita caters to tourists and the only place that seemed open was a pizza and italian place. I went inside and had a pretty decent Margharita pizza since I ddn't want to wait for dinner for the other restaurants to open. Then I went to the store, bought some post cards and tried to buy ...

... was filthy, and only one of our rooms had a working water heater for the shower, but the place had a decent bar and friendly people. We ate dinner at a place called Mare Nostrum, just down the street from our hostel. I had the paella, which was decent, but everyone else hated their food. Sarah finally doused hers in Lizano sauce (she had pasta with pesto) and thus managed to choke it down. I'm going to have to pick up a gallon of that stuff before I leave Costa Rica.

We arrived on the Caribbean Coast 2 days ago, and it´s amazing. We took the bus from San Jose, which took 3 1/2 hours. Time passed quickly though as there was so much to see out of the window. We passed through a lot of dense vegetation, massive palms and plants i´ve never seen before, kept my eyes peeled for monkeys but so far hav´nt seen any. We´re staying in a sleepy little town called Cahuita, where there only about 2 main streets. The roads are dust ...

... lieu dans Río Estrella.... mais aussi la seule jusqu´à maintenant à cause de la pluie. Après un mois de lecture sur la programme, j´ai enfin pu voir ce que c´est. Pour commencer, on a marché sur le bord de l´eau et en même temps, on a ensayé d´identifier les espèces de poisson qu´on puisse trouver....mon problème était d´en trouver un! Ensuite, on devrait nager contre les courants dans les rapides. Juste avant qu´on se prepare pour entrer dans l´eau, un garçon qui ...

... is definitely a go tonight. Getting to see thousand pound turtles lay eggs on a dark beach should really be something. Update from home: Didn't get to do rappelling, but did go at night to see a leatherback turtle lay her eggs on the beach. Incredible! Those of us who went piled into a rickety van around eight o'clock. We were subjected to an hour and a half of blaring reggae music while bouncing along what passes for roads in this part of Costa ...

... spotting all types of animals that kept us on the trail! We saw a large iguana before we even entered the park and not long afterwards, we saw a small family of Cappuchin monkeys frolicing in the trees above us. We actually saw more animals in the 3 hours walking along this very easy path than we did the first day in the jungle! We saw a yellow viper..don`t recall the name, sorry, some interesting insects, a ton of blue crabs and other types of crabs, a raccoon ...

... and then was surfing in Mexico I think before he came here. He and Chris were both in Costa Rica/Panama to surf. Luke told me this story about he was detained in the US airport because he was trying to fly to Puerto Rico, but he didn't realize that it was part of the USA so he didn't have a visa. They told him he couldn't try to the enter the US again for 3 years!

After the taxi ride with everyone above we took a water taxi to Isla ...