Puerto Viejo de Talmanaca is a small, coastal beach town on the Caribbean in Costa Rica. The town looks a tad rundown, but there are several decent shops and restaurants to be found while wandering amongst the ramshackle homes and huts lining the streets and avenues. It’s quite dead during the day, but once the sun descends, things come to life. There was quite the bustling nightlife! However, being old, the Hubs and I did not take full advantage of it.
My often repeated theme of accidentally larcening animals continued this portion of the tour as I tried to larcen a cat at the hotel we were staying at, Acaranda Hotel and Jungle Garden. The pension was a family-operated joint and a rather unique establishment. A meandering maze of a garden lead the way to all of the casitas. The Hubs and I located ours at the back of the property, and we entered as two sweaty, hot messes hoping our unit had one of the AC units we could utilize. Alas, we were not that lucky, but we did have two whole fans with zero openings, or functional windows to move the air around. Awesome (insert annoyed emoji face). To compensate, we routinely left the door open. You see where this is leading.
Night One with main door open: Wifey did a HIIT workout on the front patio because it was cooler outside than inside the room. A black and white pussy cat became interested in our accommodation and snuck his/her way into our room (I only say his/her because we did not check for gender while petting the kitty). Aforementioned kitty decided the bed we were sleeping in was now cat territory, instead of the completely empty bed across the room. This continued for the remainder of our time in this locale. We didn’t even feed the little fucker like we have many other animals we have encountered on our travels, but we did consistently leave the door wide open.
Parque Nacional Cahuita is just north of Puerto Viejo de Talmananca, and Rafa, our guide, informed us we were going to go on a stroll through the park to spot sloths and other wildlife. The park had a meandering, sandy path weaving through the African Palms. There were a variety of birds chattering, ants marching around toting leaves, trash pandas scaling up trees, and crabs stumbling about the sand. Not to brag, but I did spot the first sloth. He was clamoring around the trees up above us, moving in slow motion. It was a stark difference from the agile, bouncing monkeys.
The day started out decently enough, though a smidge cloudy. The farther we trekked into the park, however, the damper it became. The sprinkles became a drizzle and the drizzle then became downpour. To top that off, the tide began creeping it’s way in. The goal was to get to the final viewing point, but alas, Mother Nature had other plans for a walk. The gulf waters ultimately claimed part of the oceanside path, to include the tree that was barely holding on. Next obstacle was the part of the pathway that was now underwater. We were rewarded with a sloth inches off the trail at eye level. The photographs of him do not even look real.
This little Costa Rican town redeemed the country for us. And on that note, please enjoy some cute sloth photos…
Another night with the cat in the stuffy casita, and the next morning we packed up and headed to the interesting border crossing with Panama. We lugged our baggage across the bridge since vehicles apparently do not get to cross with occupants.
And just like that, we entered into Panama. Adios Costa Rica!
