I, of course, am looking like I’m going to kill someone because nobody ever taught me how to smile.

Cahuita is neat.  It’s like Puerto Viejo but there’s less tourists and definetely no Spring Break type party crowd.  Apparently, Playa Negra which is a long beach running along the shore here is suppose to be fantastico.  The sand is suppose to be black and surreal.  We rented bikes and checked it out, but it was all (for kilometers) covered in dirty driftwood and ocean debris.  Apparently they’ve have some mighty storms over the last little while.

No big deal.  We hiked a few KMs through Cahuita Nacionale Parque.  We saw some monkeys and a few slothes.  A park ranger even pointed out a yellow baby viper to us and kindly let us know that if bitten we would die in 15 minutes.  The snake really didn’t look like much though.  It looked like a yellow ball wrapped around a stick.  I think he may have bullshat us.

Here’s what our room looked like for about $20 a night:

It was called Hotel Belle Fleure or as the French would say: Hotel Pretty Flower.  Isn’t that nice?

It rained a lot here in Cahuita.  The Carribean (western) coast of Costa Rica can be that way whether it be dry or rainy season.  People ’round here were saying that the rainy season might not end this year and it might just keep raining.  We tried to make the best of it anyhow and got drunk and went swimming.  Brianna will report more on that… but here’s some pics of the hike we’d take along the beach and through Cahuita Nacionel Parque:

And even though I have the $500 DSLR camera, Bri always nails the nicer shots with her little Cybershot:

Some others things happened as well – I’m quite sure of it – but I’m going to skip ahead.  We talked to some people who said we must absolutely do this white water rafting trip down the Rio Pacuare.  We discovered that this company (Exploradores Outdoors) would pick you up from either San Jose, the Carribbean (Cahuita, Puerto Viejo), or La Fortuna and take you white water rafting, and then drop you off in a different destination if you wished.  The trip cost $100 each, but it was well worth it.  Anyway, we spent 4 hours on the river in Class 3 and 4 rapids, and they feed you breakfast and lunch and it was awesome.  We met two people that had done the very same trip 6 and 7 times and they said they had never fallen off.  This time, because of well the rain, the river was crazy and we all fell off.  Some other rafts flipped over right in the middle of Class 4 rapids.  It was pretty intense, and it raining a little most of the time.  Well worth it.  I don’t have any pictures of that though, although one woman we met with a waterproof camera might e-mail us some.

Here’s something funny: The first time we tried to go the van picked up and we got maybe 20 minutes down the highway before we got stopped.  Protesters blocked off the highway with logs and fires.  We had to turn around and go the next day.

After the rafting they dropped us off in La Fortuna (northern Costa Rica, not on the coast)… posts coming up…