Playa Negra

Little news is good news… things are a bit slow here these days… surfing, reading, drawing, watching the rain falling… mmmh, somehow, the weather is only somewhat cooperative with us and it rains about two out of three days.



We still get out surfing a lot though, although the waves are not so good at Playa Negra; yes, they’re definitely smaller than Playa Cocles when the swell comes in, but hardly rideable.


And then we also get to go venture when the weather is cooperating. The black sand beach here is at least as long as the white sand beach at Cocles, it just keeps on going for miles it seems, most of it deserted and backed with palm trees and lush jungle. It’s very scenic.

Black sand beach, looking at Pto Viejo

same spot, looking in the other direction

It's also funny to see the usual criters around here: no pigeons, but vultures take their place on the beach and on rubbish heaps; hardly any stray dogs (they are all looking well fed and owned...) but stray horses instead, wandering the streets and rummaging through the rubbish too! Apparently, rubbish may be better than grass... :)
We went to Limon a few days ago, the only city in the area, the headquarters for banana export. It’s very much unlike the rest of the Carribean coast: it’s busy with people going places (as opposed to just hanging out), bustling with stores selling everything but souvenirs, and very untouristy. So we wandered around the streets and the Mercado Central for a few hours, and then returned to Puerto Viejo with a mystery ailment that had both Paul and I feeling a bit odd for a couple of days… We both had aching joints and a slight headache… but Paul also had sweating bouts at night, completely drenched, yet no fever… and then that’s it, the second day, it was over.

sunset on Playa Negra, courtesy of PT

In the latest news also, I managed to sprain my knee and my ankle at the same time in knee-deep water on the smallest surf day we’ve had… I’m not too proud of that! (Well, at least it was nothing serious, just a minor sprain)

From Playa Cocles to Playa Negra

Night-time beach fun...

The third eye...

After two weeks of relative inactivity because of poor weather and impossible surf (we would have gone in the water in the rain had the waves been cooperating), the lack of things to do emphasizing the shortcomings of the place we stayed at (very poor internet, leaky roof in our room, dark (hard to read, and we did a lot of that!), mosquitoes all over our room, no useable kitchen, really crappy restaurant, far from town especially in the rain… anyway…), we decided that we’d try and find a better place to stay and an easier break to surf.

We had to part from our Playa Cocles pet, ¨Minou¨

After some search in Cahuita and Puerto Viejo, we settled on a place on the other side of Puerto Viejo (north of it instead of south), in a hotel across the road from rightfully-named Playa Negra – sand as black as I’ve ever seen it, like sparkly powdered charcoal. Our new room is a comfy little studio, with all the furniture made of driftwood for a very “organic” feel :)…

Playa Cocles sloth

During our last week at Playa Cocles, the weather drastically improved, so we took advantage of it and went cycling around to a butterfly farm a few miles away (there seems to be a butterfly farm in every town in this country, but then again, their butterflies are very cool). The farm was on the top of a hill, a grinding ride up on a bad gravel road (actually, not a ride, impossible to stay on the bike on either the way up or down!), and was not on the main tourist path. We spent a couple of hours alone in the butterfly garden, photographing away.

Grecian Shoemaker butterfly

... what a professional! so in tune with his surroundings he attracts the butterflies! hehehe...

Longwing butterfly

Owl butterfly

We also took advantage of the nice weather to get back into the water, well, Paul mostly… the waves were still not looking real friendly to me and I preferred taking photos from a distance or reading on the beach!... After all, surfing the beach breaks in this country has proven to be very fickle and challenging, especially on bigger days, when the waves all crash on the shore at the same time. On those days, it is virtually impossible to actually ride the face of a wave, and getting through the waves with a long board is even harder.
As for the world famous waves, such as the Salsa Brava, in Puerto Viejo, well, we’re definitely just watching that one from the sidelines… it’s beautiful in a fierce sort of way, crashing like thunder over shallow reef… for experts and real crazies only :).

Salsa Brava... yep, staying on the beach.

New Year

Pre-christmas fun!

The holiday season was very calm here in Costa Rica. After an impressive turkey dinner on Christmas day at a restaurant in Puerto Viejo – the turkey was cooked to perfection, tender and moist! – we had a week of clouds and rain and very big waves. Consequently, no surfing for either Paul or I; the waves were really impressive but virtually unridable even for experienced surfers and the surf break was deserted the whole week. Every once in a while though, some people, who undoubtedly came here specifically to go surfing, thought they should try it anyway and so we got to witness some impressive wipeouts!

During Christmas week, the entire coast all of a sudden became crowded with tourists though. Our hotel, which, a week earlier, had only four occupants including us, all of a sudden was booked up (30 new occupants in the span of two days!). And the same seemed to have happened everywhere else. On cloudy days, the beach, which was once more or less deserted, was crowded with hopeful sunbathers, and on rainy days, the restaurants and bars in Puerto Viejo were full all afternoon. We took advantage of those not so sunny days to go on long walks on the beach, hikes, and bike rides.

One of our excursions was to Finca La Isla’s Botanical Garden, near Puerto Viejo, which is both a botanical garden and an organic farm. If one’s interested in seeing red poison-dart frogs, they should go there instead of attempting that at Red Frog Beach!…

The botanical garden is brimming with them! They apparently are attracted to the bromeliads that are grown in several parts of the garden, because their foliage creates natural water pools that provide habitat and protection for the newborns. The bromeliads actually seem to attract quite a few other criters, including big fury spiders… ugh!

Bromeliad criters

The botanical garden also has a sizeable black pepper plantation and a cacao farm, and we got to try some natural, organic, non-preserved, non-processed, but sweetened chocolate… good stuff! J Anyway, it was all really instructive, great fun, very photogenic, and, as expected, very uncrowded!

Rootbeer flower

On New Year’s day, the rain let up and the sun came out: happy new year! And then the rain came back with a vengeance in the following days! The waves also continued to pound on the shore with heights in the range of 15 to 18 feet, washing all the way up the beach and taking the sand away with them. So it seems that bad weather and big (storm generated) waves come hand in hand here. The swell is forecasted to decrease in the next couple of days so hopefully that will mean better weather as well.