Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica - Days 28 & 29
Sunday, March 10
We woke up to rain this morning — lots of it! I suppose we are in the rainforest, so it can only be expected. It was pretty neat to sit in our open-air living room and hear the sound of rain falling all around us outside the house. I say “outside” because if you’ll remember we don’t have walls or windows in this house — it’s like sitting on an outdoor covered patio that is also your living room.
I woke up feeling much better this morning. I still have a head cold, but the medication we picked up at the pharmacy yesterday really helped relieve the pressure in my sinuses. Last night was the first night we all slept well in Puerto Viejo. Andi is feeling much better, too.
The rain let up around 10:00am, so we decided to go to Cahuita National Park about a half hour away. It’s one of Costa Rica’s only free national parks, and a great place to do some hiking and spend time at the beach. We hopped in the car to drive there, but were held up in traffic before we even reached the center of Puerto Viejo. What gives? We sat there for 10 minutes or so until a guy walked up to our SUV and told us there was a tree down ahead, blocking the one roadway in and out of town. Uh-oh! That might explain why the power went out back at the airbnb just before we left. We turned our car around and headed back in the direction we came from.
New plan — we decided to go to Punta Uva for the afternoon. Punta Uva is one of the most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica, and I’m not just saying that! Its white sand, beautiful turquoise water, and palm tree-lined beaches give it a glowing reputation. We were excited to check it out. As we drove in, we immediately saw what all the fuss was about — Punta Uva was really beautiful! We found a quiet spot under some palm trees and set up our beach tent for a comfortable place to hang out. The kids and I easily entertained ourselves for an hour or so by climbing and jumping on a fallen log in front of our perch in the sand.
Aden cracked me up when he picked up a seashell and said, “Hello? Pizza guy? Can you deliver me a pizza with no cheese to the beach?”
A little white crab kept us quite entertained as he popped in and out of a hole in the sand. And then a guy selling churros in a basket walked by, so of course Andi and the kids had to try one.
Around 3:00pm, some locals pulled their pickup up next to us on the beach. They were smoking pot and being loud, and Andi said he didn’t have the greatest feeling about them. We decided to pack up our things and go into town for ice cream.
We drove toward Puerto Viejo from Punta Uva, but were stopped in the same spot on the road again. Apparently the same tree was still down from this morning and now another tree had fallen AND a city bus had gotten stuck in the road when it was trying to turn around. It was quite a mess in town! We were unfortunately on the opposite side of town from all the ice cream shops but on the same side of town as our airbnb, so we headed back home. There was about an hour left of sunlight, so we stopped by the airbnb pool to swim. A group of photographers from North Carolina had just checked into one of the other houses on the property, so we sat and talked with them for a while. These are the first Americans we’ve met in Puerto Viejo. I assume that because this area is a farther drive from the San Jose airport and most Americans have limited vacation time compared to that of Europeans and Canadians, not as much people from the U.S. travel here.
Around 5:00pm, Andi, Tory, Aden and I went back to our place to shower. We forgot, however, that the hot water is generated by electricity and since we still didn’t have any, there was no hot water to shower. Good thing we rinsed the beach off in the pool, I guess!
Andi wanted to eat at the steak restaurant in town, so we decided to go there to see if it was open despite the power outage in town today. It was completely dark when we pulled into the parking lot of La Pecora Nera Ristorante, but Andi decided to go ask if they were open for business anyway. He returned to the car a few minutes later to relay that the manager said they would be happy to serve our family for dinner tonight when the power returned. He hoped that would be within the next half-hour and asked us to come back to the restaurant then.
We drove toward Puerto Viejo again to kill time, and stopped by the beach to watch all the tree drama unfold. Around 6:00pm, we drove back to the restaurant to see if they were open. There were a few candles burning at the tables, but no lights. “Come in! Come in!” the manager told us. “We will make something work for you.”
No menus - not like we could see them in the dark anyway! We had the whole restaurant to ourselves, like we had reserved it for our own special occasion. The manager apologized for having such a limited menu. He rattled off a list of foods the chef could make and we said “sounds great!” out of sympathy. The restaurant staff was going out of their way to make us something special, so how could we refuse anything they offered?
The waiter delivered a bottle of red wine to our table, lemonade for the kids, and a basket of fresh bread. First course was a vegetable soup which Aden and Tory surprisingly slurped right up! The manager of the restaurant brought pasta noodles with marinara for the kids right away, and black squid ink risotto for Andi and I. I can’t say I was super jazzed to see squid ink risotto appear before us, but we had no choice but to eat it. Bon appetit!
The manager brought bruschetta with shrimp, marlin, and another unidentified fish which I’m still not sure of since it was so dark at our table. Ha! By this point we came to the realization that this was not the steak restaurant we though it was. This was clearly an Italian restaurant. Oops!
Tory and Aden were so well behaved in the restaurant, Andi and I couldn't believe it. We typically avoid restaurants like the plague with them because one five-year-old boy in particular isn’t the best at sitting quietly and patiently. Tonight was a different story though. The kids were enamored with the glitz and romance of a fancy restaurant by candlelight. They kept saying over and over, “Is this what it’s like to go on a date with you, Mom and Dad?”
For dinner, Andi and I had fresh-caught tuna. The food was very good. We were stuffed to the gills and honestly a little drunk since we had a bottle of red wine to finish between us. Even so, we couldn’t pass up dessert. The manager brought some sort of chocolate pastry with ice cream. Tory practically licked the plate clean.
The lights flicked on just as we finished our dessert and honestly, we were all a little disappointed. This dinner was really special for our family! It was, by far, the best food we’ve eaten on our trip and it was an unexpectedly fun “date night” with the kids. We thanked the manager for his hospitality and returned to our airbnb down the road. The wonderful thing about traveling is you never know what to expect. If you would have told me we would take the kids to a fancy Italian restaurant on this trip and enjoy it, I would have told you that you were crazy! But, here we are, wrapping up a memorable night in Puerto Viejo.
Monday, March 11
The day I woke up with a hangover. Oof. Andi and I finished the bottle of red wine with dinner last night because we assumed we paid for it. Later, we figured out that they brought a bottle to our table and only charged us for how much we drank…. which was all of it because we didn’t know the rule.
Andi and I woke up to the sound of Aden howling like a wolf from his bedroom next door. I got up to quiet him down because he was sharing a room with Tory, and he informed me that he had gone to the bathroom (#2) and needed help cleaning himself up. Double oof. Did I mention I had a hangover?
I pushed play on a workout to sweat out the bad stuff and kick my butt into gear while Andi got up and made Aden breakfast. Tory slept in until almost 8:00am. It was raining again, so we hung around the airbnb during the morning and did school and some journaling.
Around 11:00am, we decided to go to the nearby Jaguar Rescue Center. We thought it would be the perfect rainy day activity. Apparently, everyone else in Puerto Viejo had the same idea because the rescue center was packed! We bought our tickets and hung around for 15 minutes or so in the lobby, waiting for the tour to start.
Andi and I were second-guessing our decision to come here based on the number of people crowded at the entrance, but fortunately there were several volunteer tour guides who divided the number of visitors into smaller groups of 10-15 people.
The Jaguar Rescue Center is a rehabilitation center for mistreated, injured, orphaned, and confiscated animals. The center strives to release all the animals back into the wild, and serves as a safe and loving home for the ones they are unable to release. It was neat to see many of the native animals we’ve seen all over the country up close, like sloths and howler monkeys. Seriously, could the baby sloths be any cuter? A group of them were cuddled together in a little fabric hammock. Tory and Aden loved them.
Our tour guide was really friendly and knowledgeable, sharing lots of information about the animals and their habitats. After about an hour of walking around the rehabilitation center, Aden was losing interest though. Andi overheard him pick up a stick, wave it in the air, and say, “Abracadabra! I wish this tour was over and I had a snack!”
We never did see any jaguars at the rescue center which was a bit misleading, but we did see lots of sloths, monkeys, deer, crocodile, and a resident pig. After the tour, we went to Deelites in Puerto Viejo for gelato. Andi and the kids shared a dulce de leche banana split dessert and as I looked across the table at Aden eating, I could see his bottom front tooth just hanging there. I grabbed a napkin and WALA! Aden lost his first tooth! (He had his top tooth pulled at the dentist so that doesn’t really count.)
After ice cream, we walked around downtown Puerto Viejo a bit. It wasn’t very busy considering it was a Monday and it had just finished raining. What a funky, cool Caribbean beach vibe Puerto Viejo has. We love it here.
On our way back to the airbnb, we stopped at the grocery store again for groceries. When we got back to the house, I took the kids to the pool to swim and did some laundry while Andi ran out to get a massage. His neck and back have been hurting him the past few days. We made dinner at home again, and called it an early night. Tomorrow, we’ll pack up our things and say good-bye to Puerto Viejo. The adventure continues!
