Puerto Viejo

     I am possibly a little crazy writing two blogs in one day, but I figured that since I was already working on one, I might as well just work on another one about what I just did this weekend as well. This weekend, we went to Puerto Viejo, which is a small town near the beach on the Caribbean side, and although I did not do much there, it was nice to just relax.

     We left to go to Puerto Viejo on Thursday after classes because we had heard it could take an extra two hours if we left on Friday morning because of road work. But even then, we did not get there until around 9. So we checked into the hotel and just called it a night.

     On Friday, we were all up fairly early, which I suppose you can blame having to wake up by 6:30 every morning for school for changing our sleep schedules, and the fact that it is light outside by 6 in the morning any way. Some people went to breakfast, but we had bought some food for breakfast, so we made it to the beach by 8. We walked around until we found a spot we liked, and then we just swam and laid out on the beach for a few hours. It was crazy how much hotter it was in Puerto Viejo than it has been in San José, and I think all I did this weekend was sweat. We went back to the hotel to change and eat some lunch, and then we went out to look around town and do some souvenir shopping. I can't say any of us really bought anything, but it is still fun to look. Everyone in our room took naps after shopping that until about 5, and then we got ready and went to supper at a place called Hot Rocks. The food was pretty good, and they had karaoke after 8. I have always wanted to try karaoke but have never had the chance to really try it, so I went up with another girl in our group and we sang Don't Stop Believing. It was fun, and I will definitely have to go karaoke again. There were 13 of us from San José that went to Puerto Viejo and we were all girls. So when we heard that a bar in town was having a girl's night, we figured we would go check it out. But we ended up being the only ones there, so we did not stay very long. A few people headed back to Hot Rocks, but I went back with a few others to the hotel to go to bed.

Singing karaoke with Delaney

     We were not as motivated on Saturday to wake up, but we eventually woke up and went to a cafe called Bread and Chocolate that was recommended to us by a few people. I had waffles and an iced mocha, and it was delicious. After that, we all kind of split up to do our own thing. A few people went surfing, a few people went to the beach, and a few of us went shopping again. The town was not very big, but most of what the town was comprised of was shopping and restaurants, so we kept busy for about an hour or more just walking around to see other shops we had missed. We went back to the hotel for lunch and to rest a little bit, but we left and went to the beach at around 2 because we wanted to try going in the afternoon versus the morning to see how it was different. Although there were more people on the beach, it seemed better outside in the afternoon than it did in the morning, and I swam/sat in the water for quite a while, and then I just laid out on the beach and took a little nap, which was greatly appreciated. We went back to the hotel to get ready for supper, and then we ate at a restaurant called Lidia's Place. After dinner, we all went back to Hot Rocks for a little while, but I think the sun had gotten to everyone over the past two days, and we were all back in the hotel by 10:30. We had been really lucky that weekend because it had been sunny and not rainy during the day, but it down poured hard that night after we got back, so it was probably for the best that we headed back when we did.

     It was a super fun and relaxing weekend, and I enjoyed just doing nothing on the beach. We had considered going snorkeling or going to another beach that was a little ways away that we had heard was even prettier, but just laying on the beach was all we really wanted to do in the heat, and I am happy with our decision. We had heard before going that Puerto Viejo can be a bit of a party town, so we were a little nervous to go. We always traveled in large groups at night, and we did not wander too far away from what we knew. But overall, I did not ever feel scared to be anywhere in the town, so maybe we just avoided the bad parts of town. I think we might have just been lucky with where we stayed also because the hotel was supposed to be in a safer part of town. Even though we had heard those stories of the town being a little dangerous, I still really wanted to go because we had not been to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica yet and we had heard that it was beautiful, and trust me, it was. It is starting to be a little bitter sweet thinking about that by this time next week I will be back in Kearney. But even though I will be sad to go, I am ready to escape the rain and humidity here and get back to life in Nebraska.