Pura Vida – Cahuita – Costa Rica

Small roads, winding up and down mountains, what looked like cliffs, over dodgy bridges and some sharp bends. Thankfully I didn’t see any of this on the initial journey otherwise, I would have made the taxi drive at 40km an hour.

I arrived at San Jose airport relatively early for my flight to Limon. After making my way to the domestic terminal, I checked in for the flight. Interestingly, not only do they weigh your bags, but you’re also required to step on the scales to ensure that the plane isn’t overweight! It’s been damn near 25 years since I plopped my arse on a plane this small and I had forgotten just how small it was…

We boarded for the short hop, over the mountains and down the valleys to Tortuguero airport. The pilots looked like they had just left high school, with no facial hair between them. The cabin, just a tad bigger than a mini-van meant that I could see everything. One of the pilots was close enough to sit on my lap! Every flipped switch, pull on the throttle or written note was on full display. I could even see the guy putting up his improvised tint to block the sunlight while we were flying. Not something that fills you with confidence, to say the least.

I believe I can fly!

But the flight was very scenic, Costa Rica is beautiful, but it’s stunning from the air. It was a 10-seat plane, and I shared my air taxi with an American family of 6.

Tortuguero’s airport was nothing more than an abandoned shack with a “runway” attached, that ran adjacent to a beach, and a swamp. The beach is famous for nesting Green Sea Turtles. Fortunately, everyone disembarked, leaving me to enjoy ‘that private jet life’ and I was loving it, except when it started raining and every gust of wind moved us around like a plastic bag blowing down the street.

Within a matter of minutes, we were touching down in Limon, something they referred to as an international airport. In truth, the surface area of my house was larger. It’s called Limon International Airport, but there are no international flights. How could there be? It was another track, plonked between the beach and the forest edge.

It was an amazing experience. The different shades of blue of the sea, contrasting with the green jungles on the rolling hills, were exactly what I wanted when I decided to go to Costa Rica.

It took all of 30 seconds to exit the flying mini-van and walk out of the airport.

The one taxi that waited outside of the ‘terminal’ was bitterly disappointed when he realised that there was only me disembarking and my ride had been waiting. Shelly stood patiently; the poor guy couldn’t believe his misfortune.

To give context, Shelly and I go way, way back. We worked together many moons ago when I first moved to Europe. There were many drunken nights out, one of which ended in the strangest of bets. Essentially, I was convinced that she would never get married. You see she was and still is somewhat of a free spirit and I thought that chances of her settling down were slim to none. She then bet me that she would get married and when that happened, I would have to be her man-maiden of honour. A bet I accepted and subsequently lost. However, she’s the reason why I’ll probably move into ‘Hen Party Planning’ at some point if my career in online marketing stalls.

Shells moved to Costa Rica after getting married to a “BFG” (Big Friendly Giant) to set up her dream business with her husband John. Over the years we had spoken about me visiting and each time I flaked and went somewhere else. Then the pandemic happened and we know how that went. But I was there and I was looking forward to reconnecting with my friends. We drove from Limon to Cahuita along the coastline, its sleepy and picturesque with black sand beaches on one side, and thick forest on the other. It’s the stuff of paradise. We pull into their street and it’s a lush green, unpaved alleyway, the kind of place I love (Yes to trees, no to people)!

We got to the house, and it was chilled and relaxing. Exactly what I needed and a direct contrast to the hustle and bustle I had the previous 5 days.

Their compound sits right on the edge of a national park and is a stone’s throw away from the beach. We were back maybe 15 minutes before a troupe of monkeys started making their way through the trees, a forest canopy highway so to speak.

It was my first and closest encounter with wild monkeys other than the apes of Gibraltar. I was amazed by the familiar smells of the fruit trees, a lot of which reminded me of the fruits from back home. The more I looked up, the more I recognised from sight and smell and the more I pointed out to my friends, who didn’t know what some of the fruit trees were.

Cahuita’s Wildlife

The wildlife around here was mental, we saw 4 or 5 sloths just chilling in the trees. Howler monkeys screaming their little furry asses off, Capuchins thieving fruit, countless birds and other shit.

That evening we went out to dinner in Puerto Viejo, another little town but the complete opposite of Cahuita. It was lively, with loads of tourists, and their sun-bleached hair and lobster pink skin around, cycling without paying attention to the traffic and living their best lives.

It felt idyllic and most importantly, I was able to get a proper Gin & Tonic! Not some watered-down nonsense that had more lime than lemonade, but a drink where I could actually taste the gin.

Dinner was great, so good that I forgot to take pics of all of it. On the ack back to the house, we stopped at a supermarket to grab some wine… there was a lot of catching up to do. John left the engine running and went to get the booze, while I stayed in the car with Shells and the baby.

While waiting to return, I noticed this guy walking out of the supermarket looking a bit suspect. He initially started walking towards the car but then noticed me in the front seat and made a smooth move towards the other end. I thought it was a bit odd so paid more attention to his movements, then he crossed paths with another guy and it was evident that they were up to something. I turned to Shells and said ‘I don’t like the look of that guy, he’s clearly up to something the way he was lurking about. No sooner had I said that John returned to the car and we started the drive back to Cahuita.

We must have been in the house for five minutes before Shells shouted out, “Sym, that guy you saw at the supermarket, what was he wearing? Do you remember?”

I described him down to the ‘T’, and she turned her phone and said ‘It’s him. My instincts were right, he did look a bit suspect. After we left the supermarket, some poor woman was robbed and the suspect was picked up on the CCTV camera and subsequently placed on the area’s Facebook group.

Shells told me of an incident in which two young Swedish girls were visiting the area and went out for dinner. They decided to play it safe and take a tuk-tuk back to their hotel. What should have been an inconsequential event probably changed their lives forever. Instead of returning to their hotel, the tuk-tuk driver drove them to a beach where his friends were waiting.

They raped those girls; one escaped and ran naked into the jungle. From there, she could use her phone and post a message on the Cahuita Facebook channel with a cry for help. The ex-pats rallied and helped them, but they were traumatised by the police and how the whole thing was handled.

After hearing that story and a few others, it put a damper on it, for me. Not because I was too idealistic, but more because it was hard to comprehend something that horrible had happened in such a small place and to people who only wanted to experience the best of what the world had to offer. Luckily the wine took the edge off.

The idyllic view of the area I had, had been shattered. We talked a bit about it and then the wine started to flow and so did the stories about the area that you wouldn’t read in the glossy brochures. While beautiful in the day, a seasoned traveller would be able to spot the seedy underbelly of the tourist trap that is Puerto Viejo.

The next day we head back to Puerto Viejo to have lunch at the Blue Banana. The food was great, but the service was, well let’s just say there was no service. The waiter was either high off his face or was just plain dumb. We made another pit stop at a different supermarket, this time we all walked in and again, I saw something dodgy. A couple standing at the deli fridge, him with his fanny pack open, frantically stuffing what looked to be a sausage into it, before zipping it up and walking away with his basket. He had locked eyes with me and he knew that I knew what he was doing, but I didn’t care, who am I to deny a man his sausage?

We headed back to the house, had a dip in the pool and reminisced about old times. As the sun went down, the Jesus juice started to flow and the jokes were not far behind. Life does catch up to you and this was the point where we were slowing down, after all, we are no longer in our 20s.

It was great being around Shells again, we had shared so many life moments, travelled and partied together and now we were adults, drinking in the middle of the week and in bed by 10!

My time in Costa Rica was quickly coming to an end, my flight back to San Jose was a few hours away. It had been 4/5 years since we were able to just sit, have a drink and laugh as we did and I was appreciative of them hosting me. I also appreciated the fact that my stay with Shelly and John didn’t overlap with another friend and her (and I don’t say this lightly, racist cunt of a boyfriend). That was John’s hill to climb (poor guy) and I didn’t envy him one bit.

Costa Rica was great, the food, most of the people, nature and sights were amazing and oddly familiar in some respects. I needed exactly that to cleanse my soul from the horrors of my former workplace and it worked.

Would I recommend it as a vacation destination? Yes, but I would also recommend that you take your credit card and all your pennies. Because unless you’re taking public transportation, this place isn’t cheap!