The Caribbean side of life in Puerto Viejo

After a few chilled out days in Cahuita, it was time to venture further down the Carribbean coast some 16kms to Puerto Viejo.
Right from the start it was clear to see that Puerto Viejo was kinda like a Cahuita which had exploded in tourism/partying in the last decade or so. Having said that it still held a really funky and authentic Carribbean feel to the town and straight away we explored our new area for vegan treats.

Puerto Viejo is full of cool, quirky restaurants, cafes and bars and everyone we went pass we wanted to stop by to have a closer look at.

For brekky

We found Cafe Rico, a hidden cosy little cafe with the nicest atmosphere. It has the cutest interiour design, with the decoration giving you a feel that you're in a British garden during summertime (there's even a picture of the Queen above the bar!)

We could've sat here for hours.. They have so many books for book exchange that it's like a little library as well as a cafe in one place.

This is solely a breakfast/brunch place, with plenty of choices for vegetarians and as vegans we didn't have any trouble getting full. The fruit bowl with granola that we ordered came in big pasta bowls and was lush! For only 2500 colones we were absolutely stuffed.

We asked if they had soy milk for the coffees and received the most beautiful reply; "No.. But we have coconut milk" Ah, perfection. Finally some coconut flavoured coffee!

Cafe Rico seems to have Fridays off, so on that day we went breakfast hunting and found that the popular cafe Bread & Chocolate is a kind off vegan friendly joint. Best thing I found on their menu was of course the iced cappuccino with soy milk. So so so needed in this heat.

Other than that they have a few choices for vegans on their food menu as well, but we had to ask which ones were vegan to find out because the menu didn't say (like biscuits and mushroom gravy, sandwiches, salads, etc.). Vegan dessert however, was easy to spot straight away - dark chocolate cake (!). We never got a chance to try it, but it sounds AWESOME.

For daily activities 

We were able to rent bikes for just $5 each a day from the hostel we stayed at. This was such a great activity in Puerto Viejo area, as the most gorgeous beaches are a few kilometres away. We cycled passed the surfers beach Playa Cocles and Playa Chiquita until we reached Punta Uva.

Punta Uva was the perfect place to relax, drink coconut water straight from a coconut and have a refreshing swim.

It was easy to kill a lot of time here (Is it just me or does time just fly by when you're at the beach??), but after a while hunger made us leave Punta Uva.

Other than that, there is also an animal rescue center in Puerto Viejo. Which is the no. 1 ranked activity in Costa Rica on TripAdvisor. They take care of many different animals, such as baby sloths which of course many people want to cuddle with.

Me and Guy looked into volunteering here at Jaguar Rescue Centre a long time ago. Back then (like 6-8 months ago) they had a volunteer programme that costed $50/week which is understandable so that the rescue center won't lose money for food and care for the animals. However, during the time we looked into this and sent them emails requesting to come as volunteers, we got a reply saying that they now have a new owner and that the programme had changed.

It wasn't a small change. Now it costs $15 a day + a donation fee of  $350.. But oh, you do get a t-shirt. What a bonus eh.. Let's just say that this change didn't make us feel keen on volunteering here. Knowing about all this and learning about it more from more recent reviews of Jaguar Rescue center, makes me feel like it is just very commercialised now. Costa Rica has once made the great decision of not having any zoos, because animals are not supposed to be kept in captivity, but now it seems like Jaguar Rescue center has turned in to something that I would call a zoo. So many tourists goes there every day and I've heard that they won't actually even let the animal go even when they are not sick anymore and so they are kept in captivity even though they're able to make it on their own (they need something to keep the tourists from coming back and giving more money right?)

So no, I refused to go there to visit. If someone knows more about this or have any suggestions on what I can do about it to help these poor animals in any way - please let me know. 

For dinner

On a more happy note. Food. With it being low season many of the vegetarian and vegan food places around Puerto Viejo were closed when we were here. It was very disappointing finding all these cool sounding places on Happy Cow, and then looking for them to find out they were closed for the month. I can imagine it being very easy to eat out as a vegan here during the rest of the year though, because some vegan friendly places even popped up around Punta Uva/Playa Chiquita area (like Alice Ice Cream, where they have vegan ice cream!!!)

In town you have Como en mi casa Art Cafe and Chile Rojo (which actually was open when we were there but a bit too pricey for us, but they have plenty of vegan options like sushi and on mondays they have all you can eat sushi (!) gaahh, I wish we would've been there on a Monday!)

But because of the lack of good vegan food places and because we wanted to try to protect our wallets a bit, we went to the supermarkets for some vegan treasure hunts. Bio Mercado food store has plenty of vegan items, such as seitan and much more.

In all the regular supermarkets we also found that there is a bakery that has a section which seems to be a vegan friendly bakery, they had a range of vegan items such as banana bread, pita bread, wholewheat bread and vegan oat cookies. Aaah-mazing.

The best vegan food in Puerto Viejo was found at Soda Guetto Girl One Love (located just in the beginning of town from Cahuita way). It is easily the best and funkiest soda in the country.

The woman who runs the place is so lovely! Speaks English very well and is really easygoing. There is no menu here, so we just explained our food preferences and it wasn't a problem at all. Instead she served us the biggest and tastiest food feast we've had in a long time.

Because she cooks everything from scratch when you order, it took a while for the food to be served but I think that's a good thing because we sure needed a big appetite to be able to finish the plate of coconut rice, veggie stew, beans, salad, patacones, patacones filled with refried beans and guacamole and plantains. I think I died here and went to vegan heaven.

For evening activities

With it being a bit of a party place, we did't have to go far to find good deals for happy hour. Our favourite place is the reggae bar Salsa Brava, where they have lush ginger rum cocktails and you sit right on the beach with the sunset infront of you and reggae music in your ears.

Puerto Viejo isn't too shabby.

The Caribbean side of life in Cahuita

Going to the Costa Ricas Caribbean side is one of the best decisions we've made on our travels. It is like another world in comparison with Santa Teresa and the west coast of the country. We fell in love with the Caribbean coast straight away when we arrived to the little village Cahuita. This is where you'll get reggae music and reggae nights, nice beaches, amazing wildlife, lots of chocolate tastings and amazing food. A vegan doesn't have to be hungry around here. Almost all sodas (the local restaurants) and food places in general serve coconut rice, grilled veggies and veggies in coconut milk sauces, smoothies with coconut milk or blended with your choice of fruit and water. Yes, I found this to be the heaven of Costa Rica.

As I mentioned, Cahuita is a small village and most people come here for a day to visit the national park. It's also a great place for snorkelling, as it has a huge coral reef surrounding it. We visited during low season, which meant lower prices for accommodation than usual, but we think that it is still cheaper than Puerto Viejo next door. It is so tiny that there is only one main street with a few restaurants and bars, and there weren't many tourists around.

We stayed at a lovely guesthouse called Cabinas Cahuita. It is a family business and the man in charge is hilarious! We had some funny chats with him and his mates that were hanging around sometimes. Being in Cahuita and the heat made it almost mandatory to have an AC, so we were very thankful that our room had one. We even had our own hammock and tiny beach outside our room!

Unfortunately there aren't any vegan or vegetarian restaurants in Cahuita, but one does not have to be hungry around here anyway with some choices in the few restaurants around. Since we had access to a kitchen, we continued to cook our basic meals there most of the times but went out for breakfast to one of the sodas in the mornings. Ever since spending time at Planet Costa Rica, I am addicted to having that big fruit plate in the morning, even though the ones I've ordered from the sodas here are usually like 1/4 of the size we were served at the farm..

Both days we spent in Cahutia, we spent in the national park after breakfast. It is such a great national park if you want to be sure to see some wildlife! I think this national park is way better than Manuel Antonio, because this one simply doesn't feel commercialised yet.

We only had a 3 minute walk to get from our accommodation to here, and it is just off the main road. From this entrance they don't charge any fees either, they just happily receive whatever donation you are happy to give.

We saw many monkeys, cool and scary insects, racoon, and thanks to a local man who must have the best eye sight - two sloths being lazy up in the trees!

Even if it gets really, really hot walking around and trying to spot animals it doesn't matter, because in here we found the most gorgeous beach to have a break and a much needed swim in the silent ocean. After our first day here, we went straight to the supermarket to buy some swim goggles, because we realised there is lots to see under the water here.

Besides visiting the national park, one can go and visit the animal rescue center Tree of Life, but unfortunately for us, it was shut for the low season. It looks really cool though and they even have volunteer opportunities!

To entertain ourselves in the afternoon we went to Coco Restaurant for some happy hour coconut drinks and had some seriously tasty Patacones. I will miss these fried plantain patties so so so much when we leave. They are lush and they are almost in every restaurant you'll find around here, usually served with guacamole or refried beans. Yum!

One week of mindfulness at Casa Zen & Yoga Center, Santa Teresa

One week at Casa Zen was the perfect way to practise to really being able to relax. Even though Santa Teresa in itself is a bit too hot and humid for my liking, a week full of yoga totally made up for it.

Santa Teresa is a small village on the South Pacific coast. To get there we had to take a bus from San Jose to Puntarenas and from there go on a 45 minute ferry ride to Paquera, take another bus to Cobano, then one last bus to Santa Teresa. Yes, it's a tricky journey to do (but then again, most places are pretty tricky to go to in Costa Rica, unless you can afford taking shuttle buses everywhere, or if you have your own car) 

We probably wouldn't have gone here if it wasn't for our booked mini retreat at Casa Zen. We had done lots of research and realised that this was the most affordable yoga retreat in the country. Because I can't say that I'm the biggest fan of Santa Teresa itself (it's probably a paradise if you're a surfer though!); things are expensive, the tap water is not drinkable in the area (which makes things even more expensive of course), there's no real town center, just a long dirt road stretched out along the beach and robberies are sadly very common. 

But, saying what you want about Santa Teresa, the yoga did make up for all of this and made it into one of the best weeks we've had since being away. 

Casa Zen is a really cool place with nice bedrooms, a garden where a monkey decides to hang out and be loud and an amazing yoga deck. The shared toilets unfortunately tends to become very dirty in a day, and having an air-con would've been a great plus because the room, well the air, was hot and humid ALL the time.

It does feel really homey because of the two dogs and one cat who lives here aswell. 

We'd book the mini retreat (8 days, 7 nights), which now during low season was slightly cheaper than in high season. For $175 each we got our private room with shared bathroom, tropical breakfast every morning, use of yoga equipments and we were able to attend unlimited yoga classes.

Our mornings would usually start with breakfast; a plate full of fruit and really nice coffee and at 9:30  we went on the first yoga class for the day.

All of the yoga classes we went to were really great. It really felt like doing yoga in paradise on that deck and it felt great to challenge myself to do poses I'm not so comfortable with doing. The teacher are real inspirations and after doing so much yoga that week, I feel like I can't live without it from now on. 

I've been struggling a lot with my patience hen it comes to yoga, because of my tight hamstrings and hips which makes it harder for me to do many poses. I really needed this week to realise that all I have to do is come back. In the end it does take some dedication, but finding the joy in it is a moment that I will never forget. 

Here I am practising crow pose, my next challenge to master. Step by step. 

I'm also so proud of Guy for coming with on all the classes and try to fight his scoliosis. 

At the end of every yoga class, when it was time for corpse pose I could hear the sound of the waves so after most morning classes we went down 50 meters from the guesthouse to the beach.

Some days we walked further to other beaches aswell, all of them with big waves though. Good for surfers, not for me.

Our daily treat before we went on the evening yoga class, was to go to the airconditioned organic food store Green World store, to have a big, cooling avocado-banana shake. Bliss in a glass.

Since restaurant food seemed to be very expensive around here, we cooked most of the food ourselves. And this was very simple food. A lot of pasta with soy chunks in tomato sauce, avocado pasta, pasta with refried beans and lots of papaya and bread.

There aren't that many vegetarian restaurant in the area either. I only know of one organic vegetarian restaurant and that's about it. But it seems like many restaurants do have vegan options. The Bali deli Cafe, the neighbour to Casa Zen, even had sandwiches with vegan cream cheese.

We treated ourselves one night to eat out, when our craving for falafel just went though the roof. And so we went to Zula Restaurant, with supposedly the best falafel in town. Now, I know we don't have any other falafel from Santa Teresa to compare with, but I'm still gonna agree to say that this is the best falafel in town. It was amazing, especially loved the tahini sauce that came with it.

One day in Montezuma

One of the days we escaped the retreat to explore the waterfalls of Montezuma. We took two local buses (changed in Cobano) to get there, which was way cheaper than paying for a shuttle. On the other hand, local buses are never easy to take in Costa Rica. Usually very delayed and don't make any sense since the time tables seem to change all the time. But, we managed to get there and back anyway.

The waterfall hike was really cool. There were locals trying to sell themselves as guides to us, but it wasn't a problem at all to do it all on our own. 

We walked along the river for a while until we reached the first monster waterfall where we had a swim and then we had to climb up (literally climb! There's ropes that you have to use to move forward and to keep you from not falling down the hill) a big hill to get to the top of that waterfall, where there was another waterfall, and on top of that, a tiny waterfall where we had another swim and had fun with a swing rope aswell. 

This waterfall loop took about 1-2 hours in total and was a great refreshing, free activity. But the refreshness from swimming in the waterfall was gone 5 minutes later on the walk back, so I was stoked to find Cafe Organico where they have VEGAN ICE CREAM! They were out of chocolate/mint when we were there, but my second choice, the avocado/coconut ice cream, was really good.

Cafe Organico had a good menu for vegans, with v marked on every vegan dish they offered. There were scrambled tofu, curry and other things so a vegan can be very satisfied around here. Especially with these bird friends around.