Puerto Viejo ~ The Destination

After a night of extreme turn-up, walks along the beach, bonfires, reggae and Spanish infused melanin... it was morning & we had a full day ahead of us to enjoy Puerto Viejo. We devoured breakfast at Hotel Banana Azul, rented bikes and set off to explore the town in the daylight and find Punto Uva and Manzanilla beaches.

First off, I'll start by saying I legit hate riding bikes with my friends. I found that out when we randomly decided to go bike riding in Houston once before, and it was no different in Costa Rica. I'm not out of shape by any means, but I'm okay with admitting extreme bike riding is not my thing. I don't want to speed race down streets, I want to take my time and enjoy sights. I want to wander around aimlessly taking everything in. I want to stop at random shops, look at souvenirs, and local jewelry. I enjoy a good bask and take it all in. This was not the agenda. I tried my best to keep up with them, but to no avail and a group ride quickly turned into them pedaling at their own pace and me literally being alone for stretches of road at a time. At first I tried to keep up, but then I realized that would do nothing but result in me either injuring myself, having a heat stroke, or re-injuring my knee that I had just went to the doctor about the week I went to New York. Wasn't happening.

I can further admit that those long 7 miles of bike ride, with only one real stop, almost ruined my trip. I had a lot of time to think as I struggled to pedal up hills, and through city streets and over bridges and into the unknown. I thought a lot, and with each difficult stretch or bridge or truck speeding by me in a foreign country with not a friend in sight, I grew angrier and somewhat sad. I'm not the type of person to ever leave anyone behind. Regardless of how fast or slow someone is going, one thing I would never do is totally disregard them and track off ahead. That was definitely a moment of clarity that regardless of how good of friends you are with someone, ultimately you have to be responsible for yourself and not expect people to treat you the same way you would treat them. I definitely didn't want to be a buzzkill, so by all means if you are in a rush and leisure is not your thing, then go ahead and leave me behind. I'll manage in my own time and in my own way. But I digress...

One of my friends doubled back to check on me which I was grateful for, but that moment in time definitely made me feel some type of way about a lot of things.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm from the bike ride, the destinations almost made up for my angst. Both beaches were beautiful. The water was the prettiest of blue, the waves were crashing and it was a perfect moment to capture both in my memory and in my camera. I walked around on the sand and tried to gather myself while they played in the water. Then we headed to our next beach and had dinner at a Jamaican restaurant on the beach.

It was a quiet late lunch, and another long & lonesome 7 miles back to our villa. We washed up, snacked & I called it a night.

I woke up extra early for some alone time, quiet reflection and reading in the front bedroom while it was still relatively cool in the house. The villa was truly beautiful and I enjoyed that time to just think and exhale. Everyone else eventually woke up and were sore from all the bike riding the previous day. We lounged around, then decided to spend some time in town and enjoying the beach near our villa. We ate with the locals at Johnny's Place and the fried fish was delicious! We then headed back to our side of town and enjoyed the black sand beach before turning in for the night.

We took the shuttle back to San Jose, and 5 hours later we were back and passing our time till our flight back to Houston. We ate at Hooters and walked around Walmart while we waited until our airline opened for check-in. By the time our flight boarded we were all delirious and laughing hysterically at everything. It was a super late flight. Some of the people who were on our flight to Costa Rica were also on our return flight and one group especially provided us with plenty of comic relief and inside jokes, like the forever funny, "Poor Sandboy" moment. By the time we boarded it was well after midnight. I was sitting next to one of the people who was in the group that provided our comedy relief and we talked for the first hour or so into our flight before falling asleep. Then finally we heard the announcement that we were making our final descent into Houston and that was the end of our weekend of Pura Vida in Costa Rica.

What's unique about Costa Rica is how each part of the country is so different from the other. When I found out about the cheap flights to Costa Rica, I immediately let my blog turned in real life friend Carla know about the deal since the airline also flew out near where she lives. We ended up in the same country at the exact same time and never crossed paths. From looking at her pictures and reading her blog, we had completely different experiences in different parts of the country. I would love to return to Costa Rica, both to visit Puerto Viejo for the cultural beach experience, but also to see the volcanoes and lush side of the country. I feel like this trip was necessary, not only for the face value, beach and fun, but also for the moments of insight and thoughts I was able to share with myself. The moments of clarity, the overcoming something that was very difficult to me and the realizations that were made. I enjoyed my time there, and this destination was very necessary.