How to Spend a Day in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica - 8-5-2012

Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

After spending three days in Bocas Del Toro, Panama at the end of July 2012, I took a side trip to Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. Puerto Viejo is a great little sea side town on Costa Rica's Caribbean side, about an hour north of the Panamanian border. Puerto Viejo definitely has a stronger Afro-Caribbean feel than anywhere I have visited on Costa Rica's Pacific Coast. We saw plenty of sun despite visiting during the rainy season.

There are plenty of hostels and budget hotels in town, but three are worth mentioning. Rocking J's is about a 15 minute walk south out of town and is Lonely Planet's pick for Puerto Viejo. This huge, beach side hostel sports its own bar and a sizable built-in backpacker community with which to hang out. Rocking J's also enjoys a party spot reputation, making it a great place to party and meet folks.

Just north and across the street from Rocking J's is it's polar opposite, La Ruca. La Ruca is smaller, much quieter, and much more hippie. When my traveling companions and I walked in, several bearded hippie guys were strumming guitars and smoking while their female companions listened quietly. The friendly staff showed us a private room and the dorms. I liked the granola vibe, the private bathroom attached to the private room, and the numerous trees and flowers on the property, but my traveling companions were looking for something more...conventional.

Lazy Mon is right in town, right on the beach, offers a dorm and several private rooms with balconies overlooking the beach. There's a bar restaurant right downstairs that features foosball tables and talented singer-songwriter music nearly every night. Its location in the heart of Puerto Viejo, chill vibe, and beach side access made it a great choice for my traveling companions and I. Dorm beds are $15 per night and private rooms are $25 per night.



Baby Sloth at Jaguar Rescue Center, Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

Once you've checked in to your place, you'll definitely want to check out Puerto Viejo's list of things to do. At the top of that list for my traveling companions and I was the Jaguar Rescue Center, a 25 minute bike ride south of town. We rented bikes for $5 for the whole day at a spot across the street from Lazy Mon. The Jaguar Rescue Center doesn't have any jaguars, and only very rarely does. The center is named after the first animal they tried to save, a jaguar. The center does have monkeys, plenty of baby sloths and a whole lot of snakes. Do note that the center is neither a zoo, nor a preserve. The center nurses injured animals back to health and then releases them into the wild as soon as they are ready. Certain animals can't be released back into the wild because they were kept as pets. These animals are instead released into the nearby forest, also part of the preserve, and are regularly offered food if their hunting skills are weak (perhaps because their parents were killed and were unable to teach the animal wilderness skills). Highlights of the tour included seeing baby three toed and two toed sloths and having monkeys climb all over us for 15 minutes in the monkey reserve.

Tours happen every two hours and last about two hours in total. The preserve conducts tours in English and Spanish. Entrance is $15. Contact them at 506-2750-0710 or jaguar.resc@gmail.com. Check out their website at www.jaguarrescue.com.





Punta Uva, Costa Rica

About 15 minutes south of the Jaguar Rescue Center by bike is Punta Uva with Playa Manzanillo about 10 minutes further south of that. Punta Uva is a beautiful white sand beach that emerges from thick jungle. It's in the community of Cocles, which has several restaurants and hostels, so don't expect to be alone. Also, don't try to swim outside of the red flags posted on the beach because the rip tides get bad there.





Playa Manzanillo, Costa Rica

For a truly deserted beach, bike south to Playa Manzanillo. There are few signs, but you'll see beach access through trails that lead through the thick jungle and mangrove swamp. The brief trek from road to beach is worth it, though. Playa Manzanillo is a picture perfect, deserted, white sand beach with clear warm water and moderate currents. My companions and I spent about an hour there sunning and taking pictures of the beach's striking beauty. Palm trees stretched over turquoise waters, and thick green jungle hid all sings of the road and human civilization. Aside from my traveling companions, not a single person disturbed the peace. If you've got the time, go to Playa Manzanillo.

Alright...now you've visited an animal rescue center and biked to two beaches...the second of which is nearly beautiful beyond words. How do you cap off your day? Tasty Waves is a small bar just north of Rocking J's and is the perfect place to go nuts with the locals (Tuesday night is when the entire town hits up Tasty Waves) or melt into the Caribbean ease with a beer and a game of pool on the other nights of the week. Alternatively, you could hit up Stanford's bar beneath Lazy Mon for foosball and live music. The live music ends around 9:00PM, though, so you could easily start your night at Lazy Mon and end at Tasty Waves. A cab ride from town to Tasty Waves should cost no more than $5 round trip. Make sure to arrange a time for your driver to pick you up because it's a long, dark walk back into town from Tasty Waves.

Safety Notes:
Our hostel's manager, Justin, advised that parts of the town are not safe for tourists after dark. Take a cab if traveling after dark, especially of going to the bars in the far south end of town like Tasty Waves.

La Selva Animal Preserve in Playa Carrillo, Costa Rica - 5-31-2012



La Selva Aniimal Preserve in Playa Carrillo, Costa Rica

Do you like wildlife photos? Do you like animals? If so, then you need to make visiting La Selva Animal Preserve part of your trip to Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula. The preserve will hold different animals than when I visited, of course, as their current holdings are released to the wild and as other animals are brought in. You can be nearly certain, however, to see many turtles, plenty of iguanas and an alligator or crocodile whenever you visit.



Green Iguana at La Selva Animal Preserve, Playa Carrillo

La Selva Animal Preserve in Playa Carrillo accepts animals injured in the wild as well as wild animals held illegally as pets. The preserve nurses these animals back to health and, if held as pets, socializes them with other animals in preparation for their release into the wild. The preserve receives animals from all over Costa Rica, and I saw several animals that were not native to the Nicoya Peninsula.








Margay at La Selva Animal Preserve, Playa Carrillo

When I visited in a rental car with several friends from Casa Brian in Playa Samara in late April 2012, we were given a tour by the woman who has run the preserve for years. The entire tour took 45 minutes (the preserve is small) and covered the names, origins, and habitats of each animal in residence. We started the tour near the preserve's entrance. Our guide showed us numerous mice, rats and frogs, each in their own spaces. The frogs were noteworthy for being particularly large, though they weren't very active during the day. After the frogs, we were shown several long snakes, all of which slept through my picture-taking. The tour moved on to a local bovine (like a pig, but bigger, browner and covered in fur), and then to several small leopard-looking cats, called margays, in large cages. One cage contained a mother, Maya, who paced restlessly, and her cub who playfully scratched at one of my Canadian friends when offered the top of his hand. From there, we were shown several colorful toucans and a parrot. The parrot didn't talk, but he seemed friendly enough.



Fat Squirrel at La Selva Animal Preserve, Playa Carrillo

From there, we were shown the fattest squirrel I had ever seen, sharing a cage with a lazy, sleepy tree sloth. If you've never seen a tree sloth, they seem to wear a built-in smile. This one was white and maybe three feet long from hand to foot, though he never rose from his sleeping basket. The squirrel was kept illegally as a pet and was being put on a diet (seriously!) at the preserve before being released back into the wild. After this unlikely pair of roommates, our guide showed us several kinds of owls, bats and nocturnal birds. The bats were quite inactive, hanging peacefully from their cage's ceilings. Likewise, the owls stayed in their cubby holes, or rested on their perches.

From there, we were shown the Iguanarium, which was full of emerald colored lizards sunning themselves on leaves and rocks, and the separate turtle habitat which must have had nearly three dozen small turtles hidden in ponds and in holes carved into cinder blocks, like turtle apartments.



American Crocodile at La Selva Animal Preserve

American Crocodile at La Selva Animal Preserve

The last stop on the tour was the crocodile pit. A single American Crocodile was held in a large concrete pool covered with water-borne plants. The crocodile came out of the water only when offered a whole chicken from local supermarket. He scarfed it down quickly then disappeared back into the water. He did pose for a few pictures, though, before leaving.

La Selva Animal Preserve, Playa Carrillo, Costa Rica

Once the tour was over, our tour guide invited us to stay as long as we liked. We stayed another 45 minutes taking pictures of the animals and flowers. We also inadverteantly disturbed a fire ant nest...bring some bug spray! The flowers at the preserve were beautiful shades of red, yellow and orange, and their leaves were the most verdant green I'd ever seen. Even if you're not interested in animals, the botanical photos you'll take are well worth the price of admission.


Find La Selva Animal Preserve by taking the road that leads south through Playa Samara. Follow the road out of town, past the various sodas and stores, past the small primary school on your right and into the deserted Playa Carrillo. At the second bridge in Carrillo, follow the dirt road up into the hills for about three minutes. La Selva Animal Preserve will be on your left -- you'll see a couple signs for it. Admission is $15, but includes a tour and covers a return visit in the evening when different animals are active. Please note that the evening visit must be on the same day as your daytime visit, otherwise you will have to pay another $15 entrance fee.


Playa Carrillo, Costa Rica

 From Playa Samara's main street, the journey is about 15 minutes by car and about 40 minutes by bike. Playa Carrillo is gorgeous when it's deserted, but it's only deserted during the week because Carrillo is a really popular Tico beach. Saturdays and Sundays, especially during high season, are packed. I recommend you visit La Selva between Monday and Friday so you can take pictures of Playa Carrillo when it is empty and at its most beautiful.