Puerto Viejo!

After the HOTTEST bus journey of our lives we made it to Puerto Viejo and checked into our ‘Hidden jungle beach house’. Getting here was a dream, minus the heat, we left Hotel Otoya and hopped in an Uber to MEPE Bus terminal where we caught the local bus heading to PV. It takes 4.5 hours and costs around $15NZD pp which is much cheaper than the private shuttle which will skin you $75NZD each!
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As much as it was super hot, the bus was comfortable, and we got here on time, so I would highly recommend this option if you are looking to save some $$. Back to our accommodation…it is amazing! It is by far the most unique yet as it is the third floor of a tree-house with our own balcony in a garden of sloths, racoons and a whole heap of ‘jump for joy’ wildlife. I clearly picked this one for the wildlife alone and I am glad we did. It’s costing around $60NZD per night but Amy our super host is incredible. She has the kitchen stocked with everything we need to cook and there is a shit ton of snacks to help ourselves too throughout the day. If you are coming this way, book this place!

Since we have opted to cook the entire 5 nights we are here I won’t have any amazing food pictures to show for ‘PV’ so I am hoping this time round the location speaks for itself. With this said, I am STOKED to be back in the kitchen again and making us both healthy, cheap meals and not spending half our budget on food every day.

After a good night’s sleep filled with the sounds of the jungle and me having a mini heart attack when I found a lizard in my bag we woke up nice and early and started our adventure. If you have read my previous blogs about Colombia, then ‘PV’ would be best described similar to Palomino, but 10x better. Maybe because we are in Costa Rica but it’s cleaner, safer and the beach vibe here is awesome.
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There are heaps of cool things to do here including visiting the Cahuita National park, the Jaguar rescue centre, beach hopping and the Gandoca Manzanillo National Wildlife Refuge…all of which we intend to do in the next few days. Today's mission was beach hopping, however after a full morning of downpours we didn’t have high expectations. When 9.30am hit however, the sun broke through and we were off!

​Playa Cocles was our first stop which was about 5kms from PV and tbh was ok but didn’t even marginally live up to the past few beaches we have been to. I guess at this stage we are spoilt. We then followed for another 2 km’s to Punta Cocles which was much more impressive with nicer areas to swim, sandier beaches and a nicer atmosphere. However, on the way we managed to see a sloth, various howler monkeys as well as a little opossum, so many spiders and insects and some weird nuclear looking caterpillars. 

On the way home, we spotted a Portuguese man of war jellyfish chilling on the beach, the 4th most deadly jellyfish on the beach and apparently there are heaps – I GUESS I WON’T BE SWIMMING that’s for sure.​

​Another massive day of exercise, this time hitting 14km’s so by the time we made it home, it was an afternoon of chilling, clothes washing and looking back through the awesome pics from today.