Taking it easy

The area around Puerto Viejo de Talamanca is a laid back sort of place, full of Tico tourists and backpacker tourists. I spent four nights here, relaxing, catching up some, and doing a couple of tours (more on that in the next blog posts). I was also hoping to go snorkeling here - it's supposed to be the best in Costa Rica - but the sea was too rough.

The first night I stayed at a campground at Punta Uva. It's a beautiful place with less people than Puerto Viejo. On Sunday there were lots of Tico families there enjoying the beach. For three nights I stayed at a beautiful, lonely beach called Playa Grande recommended to me by Rodrigo. There were a few locals during the days and only a couple other people camping there, including a nice person, Ryan, who lives in Puerto Viejo and was camping there with his two young boys and their friend. Ryan is from South Africa and moved here a while ago, working remotely. It was fun watching the boys have so much fun camping, fishing, having a campfire, and looking for things in the night. I found a great coffee shop in Puerto Viejo called Bread & Chocolate (again, recommended by Rodrigo). I spent some time there catching up on my blogs. Enough time that I was starting to feel like a local as the wait staff greeted me when I came in.

Ryan recommended a great food stall to me with the best jerk chicken - no, the best chicken ever - and some incredibly good hot sauce. It's called Take It Easy. It is run by the friendliest guy named Chris. You can tell he was a good person because he would hire these young kids to help rake leaves and bring the chicken to people. I had to wait a while for the chicken to cook, but that was not a problem relaxing in the hammock. He had benches around with some great sayings on them - perhaps I need to add them to my favorite quotes in the blog.

I could stay here a while...