The weather gets a bit warmer soon after we leave Poás behind us. We drive through lush forests again, the scenic drive even takes us past the La Paz Waterfall. Once we turn onto the road towards the Caribbean coast, the road gets busy with trucks – Puerto Limon is an important port city, shown by the containers waiting to be shipped to Europe and elsewhere. When we finally arrive in Puerto Viejo, we are exhausted and hungry, but happy to feel the sun on our skin again after the rainy couple of days in Poás. Shortly after we check in to the hotel, we follow the hotel owner’s recommendation and go for our first Caribbean version of rice and beans – delicious but also heavy. We stroll around town a bit but soon after sunset we sit on our lovely terrace and enjoy the sounds of the garden, before passing out at a very reasonable hour.
The next morning, it’s beach time. We find a beautiful beach and spend our morning in the shadow of a palm tree and take a dip in the surprisingly violent waves every now and then. Two days later we find out that the beach we actually wanted to go to was a few hundred meters north, with much calmer waters. Nevertheless, we enjoy the quietness of the first beach morning. At 2pm, we have an important appointment: a cacao and chocolate tour! Andreas – a woman – takes us through the forest, not only talking about cacao but explaining all sorts of plants, fruits and animals. She fearlessly touches spiderwebs and poisonous frogs, but seems to know exactly what she’s doing.
We see different types of cacao trees and learn about the fungus that wiped out the cacao plantations in Costa Rica, slowly recovering now thanks to a new hybrid plant resistant to the fungus. We taste fresh cacao beans, smell their fermentation and taste dried ones. And then comes the best tasting of all: chocolate from different cacao farmers. At Caribeans, the chocolate only consists of cacao and organic, raw cane sugar – so all aromas strictly come from the cacao bean (except when flavours such as chilli or orange are added). We munch our way through four delicious and surprisingly different chocolates, before taking it to the next level: trying to mix our own flavour combinations with the chocolate, from garlic, chilli, and salt, to coffee, vanilla and coconut.
With very satisfied tastebuds, we see the final steps that turn the cacao into chocolate: it is peeled, crushed into nibs and finally churned with the desired amount of sugar, before being put into moulds and packaged – all by hand – for sale. It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that we spent around 45€ on chocolate and cocoa nibs – the best souvenirs and presents are edible after all (or drinkable, see the coffee tour above). The sun is already low when we return home with our bag full of chocolate – what a first day at the Caribbean coast.
The next morning, we are off to Manzanillo beach, a little further south. It is not hidden from the road like the beach from the day before, but we finally find some crystal clear water so we spend another relaxed morning reading, tanning and swimming. After lunch, we head back to the chocolate place for an iced mocha. We run into two Italians we had met during the tour and exchange about our travel experiences. From them, we learn that the beach we were looking for on the first day is in fact a bit further north and that the water there is very quiet. We decide to check it out – the water is a bit muddier than in Manzanillo, but the setting is unbeatable. Jungle up to the water, calm waves, and we even spot a sloth curled up in a tree. It is already the late afternoon, so we decide that this would be where we would spend our last day on the Caribbean coast.
We arrive early the next morning, watch pelicans fish for their breakfast, the sloth is nowhere to be found unfortunately. We soak up all possible rays of sunshine before saying goodbye to this wonderful place.
A note from Julia about Yoga at Om at Cashew Hill
As we still have a bit of time before dinner, I let Brice enjoy the hammock at the hotel and go check out a yoga class. I’ve been eyeing the classes for a few days but I only make it on our last night. As I arrive, I instantly regret not having done this earlier – the setting is absolutely breathtaking, on a hill, surrounded by the jungle, with an ocean view. A little different from my gym back home. The teacher and all people are super friendly. I attended a Yin and Restorative Class – I generally prefer faster classes but of course I knew that this was going to be slow. The setting is so incredible that you feel relaxed just by being there. I soak up every moment and vow to be back.
Before we leave the next morning, we have one more thing to do: visit the hotel owner’s tropical garden. What maybe doesn’t sound like the most exciting thing is pretty cool. He has 200 plants, trees and spices growing in his garden and he is a living history and biology book when it comes to the origins of all of them. He grows not only local plants but anything that will thrive in the climate, for example curry or nutmeg. Three hours and one delicious homemade smoothie later, we return to the hotel full of new information and with some grapefruits taken straight from the tree. We finish packing our bags and are off to our final destination, Orosi.
Accommodation : Hotel Cabinas Tropical
+ we enjoyed the comfortable bed, the large bathroom and the terrace, as well as the fact that there was good storage space; after about 10 days of only taking out of our bags what we needed, we enjoyed settling in here for four nights and also hand wash and dry our clothes (impossible e.g. in Manuel Antonio); the owners were very nice and helpful, there is coffee and tea in the morning but no breakfast (Pan Pay bakery is about 10min. walk away, cafes and sodas are closer by); they offer several activities, we did the tour of their tropical garden, which was great.
lookingforcoconuts 