We originally had not been planning to go to Costa Rica…however a few weeks ago we realised that we were not going to make it to all of our destinations in the USA before Reuben’s visa ran out (I’m a citizen, so I didn’t have to leave – but no way was I letting Reuben go to a new country without me and beat me on the tally!)  Unfortunately due to the visa he was on we couldn’t go to Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean to reset it…so we started looking at Central America and came up with Costa Rica.

We arrived late at night in San Jose, Costa Rica, and the next morning took a bus for four hours to the Caribbean coast.  Our first destination was a little town called Cahuita (pronounced Ca-wee-ta) where we had planned to spend three nights but wound up staying five.  Cahuita is a really relaxed little town.  We found a great, cheap hostel within walking distance from the beach and Cahuita National Park.  We swam on the Playa Blanca and the Playa Negra, hiked the 8.3km trail through the national forest and saw and heard crazy howler monkeys, a raccoon, an iguana, lots of lizards, other monkeys and even a couple of squirrels.  We sunbathed and napped and relaxed and had a fabulous time.