South Caribbean Coast

Well, yesterday I returned home (San Jose that is) from a weekend in the South Caribbean. It was amazing! The Caribbean is an unique place in Costa Rica because of all the island immigrants and it has such a laid back atmosphere, much slower than any other part of the country. It is also a lot less built up than the Pacific Coast and has more remote place to explore.
My first adventure was White Water Rafting on the Pacaure River. This river is ranked by National Geographic as one of the top ten best rivers to raft in the world (it's number 5)!! But first to get there I rode about two hours through mountains and national parks, got backed up a bit because of the landslides that close parts of the windy roads. After the traditional Costa Rican breakfast we headed to the river. It was spectacular, none of the research I had done before could prepare you for the towering mountains, the waterfalls that cascaded out of the rocks and jungle hundreds of feet above that were around every turn, or the spectacular canyons we rafted through. And the III and IV class rapids were awesome, especially with all the rain recently. We rafted for about two hours, then the guides had the lunch down to a science, it was an awesome lunch, then continued for another two hours. It was a good time, and would definitely highly highly recommend it to anyone planning on going to Costa Rica.
Then another two hour ride to Cahuita. Cahuita I loved, so laid back, everyone just hanging out on the main gravel road, calypso music, gorgeous beaches, it had it all. The next morning went snorkeling on the coral reef (oh gosh the water is so warm and blue too) and then a hike through the National Park. Saw lots of fun things like monkeys, sloths, bats, lizards, and learned about a bunch of cool plants. And actually ate a live termite, tasted minty!
Then left there to go a bit down the bumpy roads to Puerto Viejo. Puerto Veijo has a bit livelier night life, long stretches of beaches with great surfing. But I got there late so I just hung out at the bungalow place I was staying at.
Got picked up early the next morning for a four hour, crazy ride, back to San Jose. Shared the bus with some older couple that did not talk to us, two guys from CA and two women from NJ, one had travel scrabble so we played that!
This was the first time I have ever actually traveled/explored a destination alone and it's actually really cool. You meet a ton of interesting people and people are friendlier to you too. (And it's nice the hotels know who I am and treat me well) Also handed out some of my Solimar business cards to interested people I talked to, so maybe after the site is up and running it will drum up some business, haha!
This weekend I do not have an "work" trips planned for me. But I have not yet had the chance to check out downtown San Jose, so Saturday I am planning on going there with Nela's friend Ana.

My words of advice or what I have learned for this post:
Oxy Clean wipes are another MUST HAVE when traveling. White skirt + mysteriously cut bloody finger+ Oxy Clean wipes = A perfectly white skirt you would have never known had drops of blood on it.

Woah!! A cat just walked in the door and scared the crap out of me, but I think I scared it too by accident!