Weekend trip to Cahuita

San Jose is a crowded, traffic filled, smog laced city. Costa Rica's ecological tourism ethos doesn't extend to its capital as you can feel the smog scorching your lungs. Luckily it's only 3-6 hours away from unreal beaches, active volcanoes, plunging waterfalls and verdant rain forests. So it was with great excitement that I took my first weekend trip out of San Jose to a low key place called Cahuita (Kah-wheat-ah). It's a laid back beach town on the Caribbean cost which is a 4 hour bus ride from the capital. After going out Friday night with two Habitat volunteers and some of their friends, I got back to the apartment at 2:30am. I overslept but managed to wake up by 5:20 to catch the 6am bus to Cahuita. Unfortunately Christina and Hilda were nowhere in sight since I found out later they overslept. Although I'm happy to be sans cellphone for a year, it's times like this when you wonder how exactly society functioned without them for so long.

After a long and unairconditioned bus ride, I arrived in Cahuita, dropped off my things for storage at a hostel, and headed to the beach. I was excited to be out of the smog and grime of San Jose, especially since it was the first time I had seen real sunshine since I arrived. Most of the people on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica are descendents of Jamaican slaves brought to work on the banana plantations. They speak patoise which is a mixture of English and French and have a Jamaican reggae vibe going on. It retains its unique culture and is akin to being in another country, especially because until several decades ago there wasn't a viable connection linking it with the rest of the country.

Cahuita has two main beaches, a long stretch to the north called Playa Negra and then the one in the national park to the south. It was the first really tropical beach I had been to and the fact that the rain forest comes right up to the beach means that there's a ton of shade. The other distinguishing features were the temperature of the water, it's like swimming in a salty bathtub, and the clarity of the water.

After soaking in the sun for a couple of hours, I grabbed lunch at a local soda. Sodas are little local cafes that serve homestyle meals (rice, beans, salad and a meat option) and are dirt cheap. I have yet to eat a meal in Costa Rica that I didn't thoroughly enjoy. Of course I'm easy to please as most people know when it comes to food. Interestingly enough it's significantly cheaper to eat at a soda then buy groceries. After a satisfying meal, I walked over to meet was Christina and Hilda's bus. Although the bus was 30 minutes late, luckily they were on it and we headed over to find lodging for the night.

Although it was a dank, mosquito infested room, it had a sea front balcony with a hammock. We managed to haggle the price down by $5 and headed to the beach for a couple of hours before a menacing storm cloud scared us off.

After napping like coma patients, we arose from our slumber and headed over to the only bar in Cahuita. Instead of a town center, Cahuita has a town bar. It's the focal point of activity in the town and like a town center, it even has a crazy old guy that is drunk by 10am and mumbles incoherencies all day. At night they had a reggae band playing and the place was buzzing with tourists and locals. Once the band finished their set, the DJ played a scrabble of salsa, merenge, reggaeton, reggaeton, and reggaeton. Did I mention that they love reggaeton here? For those of you who are over 30, really white or not "down" with pop culture, reggaeton is a mix of hip-hop and jamaican dancehall music that includes the words "papi" and "mami" at least three times in every song and is excellent to simulate intercourse while dancing too. Oh, and every song sounds approximately the same. With that out of the way, our story can proceed.

After dancing for a couple of hours we called it a night. The next day we decided to walk through the Parque Nacional Cahuita which has an amazing beach. The trail is parallel to the beach and is shaded by tropical foliage. We started to walk, and walk, and walk, and walk. It would've helped to have consulted a map beforehand and realize how long we had to schlep to get to the beach. After walking for an hour, we got to a stretch of forest where several monkeys surrounded us. They were quite aggressive and they steal food and knapsacks from tourists. They freaked me out because a) they often have rabies b) they bite c) they're agile d) there were at least five of them e) they came really close (less than a foot) and f) they're not intimidated by any gestures or noises by humans. But we trudged on and they didn't pursue.

After 30 more minutes, we arrived and it was well worth it - a beautiful stretch of pristine, screensaver quality beach all to ourselves. We had to cram in as much sun as we could in two hours because we had to catch the 4:30 bus back to San Jose, so we headed back on the trail. An hour and a half later we made it to the trail exit. Although I had read about it in the Lonely Planet guide, it was still glorious to see a restaurant with a pool waiting for us at the exit. It was an oasis after walking 8 km in flip flops. After a delicious meal and pool swim the owner gave us a ride back to town with his adorable baby sitting on his lap honking the horn the entire way. We said goodbye and stopped by Coco's to have a last beer before heading back. The perfect end to a perfect weekend.