Last sunday I arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica. The beginning of the trip was met with mostly feelings of excitement and a little bit of nervousness. I plan to spend 5 months in Central America and this will be by far the longest travel excursion of my life. My desire for the first week was to visit an ocean front area. I split the week between two beach front communities Montezuma and Santa Teresa. Both of these towns are remote, requiring about 5 hours of travel from San Jose. To get to Montezuma I took a bus, then a 1.5 hour ferry ride, and then another bus. The buses were air-conditioned, comfortable, and did not have any chickens on the roof. The ferry ride to the Nicoya Peninsula took place at sunset.
From the time I left the airport I started meeting other interesting travellers as well as several Americans and Canadians that have semi-permanently moved down here. My typical day the first week was to run, hike, or do a yoga class in the morning, work during the midday, go to the beach in the afternoon, and relax in the evening. In Montezuma I was fortunate to find Cafe Organico to eat and work. The typical Costa Rican meal which I've now had 3 or 4 times is called a cosada. A cosada consits of rice, beans, salad, and either vegetables or meat. It's usually a big plate of food often typically costing only $4 or $5. A Costa Rican cosada meal can typically be found at a roadside eatery known as a "soda".
In both Montezuma and Santa Teresa the roads are a mix if gravel and dirt with a lot of potholes. There are more ATV's and motorbikes used to navigate these roads than cars.
In Montezuma I stayed at a place called Hotel Lucy which had a back deck about 40 yards from the ocean. It was easy to sleep at night with the sounds of the waves hitting the shore in the background. In Santa Teresa I stayed at Casa Zen which was about a 200 yard walk to the ocean. The town of Santa Teresa revolves largely around surfing. There are several surf camps here for people with no experience surfing. I stuck to body surfing and boogie boarding which was plenty of fun.
Here's a picture taken for a yoga studio/cafe above the town of Santa Teresa. This place was partiucularly quiet and relaxing since it was away from the main road.
