We traveled through the last of the Chiquita banana plantations (most of which were in Panama) and arrived in the Caribbean town of Puerto Viejo. P.V. was definitely flavored with Bob Marley music and the colors of Jamaica. The town isn´t very big, but it is full of night life and it seemed as though we were right in the middle of several college students´ vacations. The beach along P.V. is a black sand beach that we did swim in once, but we opted for the few days that we were there to rent bikes and ride the 6kms to Punta Uva or walk 3kms to Cocles to do our swimming. Once again, as we had hoped for, the water was gorgeous, though a bit mellow. Unfortunately we became a bit lazy with bringing the camera out and taking pics so we don´t have any photos for you. Basically all we did was swim during the day and eat at the Thai restaurant at night.
After a few days at P.V. we took a cab to Cahuita, a smaller, more laid back town. At Cahuita the (beautiful) beach borders the Cahuita National Park which we took a long stroll through, seeing monkeys, sloths, and lots of ants. We only stayed one night at Cahuita as we had to get to San Jose and then head up to meet Chris and Oli on the Nicoya Peninsula. But that night we did have some fun as we were having dinner and all of the electricity went out in town, allowing it to be pitch black with the exception of candlss surrounding the restaurant.
From Cahuita we took the local bus to San Jose, approximately a 3 hour ride. Once we arrived at the San Jose bus stop we were bombarded with taxi drivers trying to take us places. Now, we know about all the scamming that goes on with taxi drivers so we prefer to find our own. First, however, we wanted to call the hotel we wanted to stay at and see if they indeed had vacancy. The pay phone didn´t work and we decided to go with one of the taxi drivers since we thought he was giving us a fair rate. Once we got in the car he suggested that we call the hotel to make sure they weren´t booked. Of course when he dialed for us he dialed some place different (and we didn´t know it at the time) and they said they were booked. So he offered to take us to another hotel, which we knew he´d be making commission on, but we would be checking it out before we okay´d the place. He had quoted us 1000 colones (about 2 and a half dollars) to the first hotel to begin with and this hotel that he brought us to was a bit closer so we figured the price would be the same. We didn´t mind the hotel so we decided to stay there and then he said the fare had changed to 1900 colones. Unfortuantely we didn´t know what taxis ran at in San Jose yet, so we paid him. He gave us his cell number so that we could contact him for more rides or he could hook us up with deals (getting him commission of course).
That same day we decided to take a taxi to the hotel that we were wanting to stay at originally to book for the next night and find out about luggage storage. When we took the taxi to the hotel it was about 400 colones. We then realized just how much we´d been ripped off. And the hotel did have rooms for the night and we realized that he had dialed one of his friends to say they were full earlier. After realizing how much advantage he took of us, we are thinking of playing his game and call him to pick us up somewhere on the outskirts of town where there won´t be other people to pick up when he realizes that we are not there. We could still take the high road and just let it go, but we do like our plan of attack.
San Jose in general isn´t bad. We actually went out dancing for the first time on our trip as the bars we wanted to go to were on the same block as our hotel. It was a long, fun night and we met some great people. We spent a few days in the big city just walking around and enjoying the relaxation. It´s an easy city to spend a few days at in-between coastal visits. More thumbnails ...
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