Mellow Montezuma
Trip Start
Aug 27, 2010
1
91
106
Trip End
Ongoing
Montezuma, Province of Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Monday, June 20, 2011
It was actually fine...just a little different to our suite!
We paid $45 to take a boat from Jaco to Montezuma which seemed like a lot but it turned out to be probably the best boat transfer ever. Along the way we bumped into a giant sea turtle and a pod of 20 dolphins - hurrah! The captain was more than happy to cruise around for a while watching the dolphins jumping out of the water and swim along the side of the boat. I really wanted to jump in and try to swim with them but they were a tad too quick :)
When we arrived at Montezuma, we thought it was very different from all the other places we had visited so far in Costa Rica. This place was far more remote, relatively under developed and utterly gorgeous. It's a tiny little place which is historically a hippy outpost. Its nickname is Monte-fuma due to the favorite pass time of smoking Bob Marley cigarettes all day long - haha! And yes, we did get offered some within the first 10 minutes of arriving.
We hadn't booked accommodation and managed to get really lucky with our hotel. We booked into a place called El Sano Banano in the centre of town for $40 per night and we were allowed to use all the facilities of the five star sister hotel, Ylang-Ylang, which was just down the beach. So we had the five star pool all to ourselves for a couple of days and really felt like we were living the high life.
Montezuma, in our opinion, had the most beautiful stretch of beach that we had encountered so far on our trip. It was rugged with plenty of rock features but had a nice stretch of sand which was great to relax on and so some sunbathing. The waves however, were something else. I don’t think we had ever encountered such powerful waves, not even in Australia. They broke very close to the beach meaning they were no good for surfing, but perfect for splashing about in without getting into any real danger. They were so huge that I only managed a few minutes in the water...Craig meanwhile spent nearly a whole afternoon jumping over the waves and nearly drowning!
Chris and Jess had also joined us in Monetzuma so we met up for cocktails in the evening (and took advantage of the 241 happy hour) as well as enjoying some yummy food in a beach front cafe. The next afternoon, we all decided to hike to a nearby waterfall. The first waterfall that we reached was an enjoyable and reasonably physical trek through the river canyon with a bit of light scrambling involved. I was dressed in a maxi dress and flip flops - yes, I was truly prepared! This scramble led to a gorgeous lagoon with a really pretty 25 metre waterfall. The second waterfall however, was up above the first one and required some proper climbing and hardcore scrambling to get there and the reward was an extremely deep lagoon allowing for some awesome cliff jumping. My flip flops had pretty much died by the time I reached the top!
The cliff jump was soooo high and there was no way that Chris, Jess or I were trying it. However, Craig of course had to give it a go...and even he was scared! I’m not sure the pictures quite do it justice as it really does take quite a lot to scare the Craigmeister!
And after five relaxing days, we had to say goodbye to Costa Rica and Central America for good :( We caught a bus, boat, bus and taxi to get to the capital of San Jose and had a final dinner with Jess, Chris and Janvier (who was also there for a night). We certainly felt sad that Central America was at an end as we had had such an amazing time. We will be back!
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