The next morning we were up and decided to wander around the back streets to find a place for breakfast. Everything in Costa Rica seems to be eco this and eco that, or bio this or bio that. So naturally we ended up at an eco breakfast place, whatever that is! It was owned by a British guy. Many places in this town are foreign owned. I think the eco part came from all the decorations and a little garden area he had made.
It was interesting because he had some frogs in it and that is where I saw my first blue jean frog. They are the red ones with blue legs.
I had seen them in pictures, both on the internet and from L’s previous travels to CR. However, nobody had ever told me how small they are! I bet you could set one on an American quarter with room to spare. He also had some trees in the garden and joyfully pointed out that the neighborhood sloth was in residence today. Sure enough, just barely above our heads, so close you could almost touch it, was our first sloth of the trip. I was amazed to see that it was green!
Not naturally of course. Naturally they are a light brown. The green comes from the bacteria and mold growing on them. They never clean themselves, ever, in their whole lives. L said he read somewhere that they have like 292 different forms of bacteria on them. I guess the lesson is to never hug a sloth!
We got a yell that our breakfasts were ready so we returned to our table. More eco stuff was evident when B got his breakfast. He had ordered the special, which was French fries smothered with a topping of cheese, scrambled eggs and bacon. The eco part came into play in that it was all served in a bowl lined with a banana leaf. How artsy fartsy.
We returned to the hotel, finished packing up our stuff and headed out to catch the bus out of town. We were done with this quaint little Caribbean village and I, although I enjoyed it very much, was secretly grateful to be getting away from all that reggae music.
Our next stop was just down the road about 30 minutes by bus. It was that place we had dropped off some backpackers two days ago and I could not imagine why anybody would want to stop there. Cahuita. This is where we were to take our first real rain forest jungle walk of the trip and the major reason we were stopping there. This was another place that L had been to before so we put ourselves into his hands and he led us from the non-existent bus stop where we had gotten off the bus, to our hotel.
The owners recognized him immediately and greeted him warmly like a long lost friend. Sadly, though, they had to inform him that our nice room that we had reserved, was no longer available. They had rented it to somebody else who got there before us! This is not unusual but it just burns my butt every time it happens. They always seem to have another room available though but never as nice as the one you had reserved. Of course, I am only guessing at this since you never get to see the room you had reserved! But I think I was right this time because the room we got was a shithole. One double bed and a single bed crowded sideways into the little bit of space left at the foot of the double bed. We actually wore flip flops in the shower and when I put my hand on the sink later as I was brushing my teeth, it almost fell off the pedestal. It wasn’t even attached! L assured us that this was normally a nice little hotel and his clients always enjoyed it.
They did have a nice little pool, which I avoided because I was sure that people probably peed in it and the water probably never got cleaned. They also had a large, wooden patio next to and above it that looked out to the beach. That was a nice treat and we did spend some time there, later that evening, drinking rum and Coke and playing cards.
We unpacked as best we could, and after L thoroughly sprayed the room with the can of Raid we purchased to try to keep the mosquito population in the rooms under control, we headed out for our first real excursion into the rain forest. I was a bit nervous with memories of yesterdays walk in my mind but determined to have a good time and not worry about all the jungley things waiting to get me!
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