Montezuma!

 On Friday February 11, I embarked on my first self-planned excursion so far. Every other excursion I have been on has either been associated with American Institute of Foreign Study or a class field trip. My friends Emily, Yaa, Melissa, and I planned every aspect of this trip from our bus route, hostel arrangements, to food. We chose Montezuma because it is not a very mainstream or touristy place to go in Costa Rica. It is located on the Pacific Coast on the Nicoya Peninsula, and it is mostly a surfer town that is famous for its hiking trails and three waterfalls.

On Friday morning, Melissa and I decided to test out a Costa Rican McDonald’s breakfast. We left our houses at 4:15am, and got pancakes at the 24 hour Mc Donald’s near our houses. From there we caught a cab to the Coca Cola bus station in downtown San José. The bus station does not sell tickets to Montezuma in advance, because they want to give tourists a chance to get tickets. Unfortunately, that makes it a bit more difficult for University students to get tickets in advance. So, we aimed to arrive at the station at 5:15 in the morning for a 6:00 departure. We were just in time to get in the front of the line. Had we arrived even five or ten minutes later, we would have had trouble getting on the bus. In order to survive in Costa Rica, you have to be pretty pushy. We watched a couple of American backpackers not get on the bus because they were not willing to push to the front of the line. Their loss…

The bus drove about three hours to Puntarenas. From Puntarenas, we got on a ferry to cross the bay between mainland Costa Rica and the Nicoya Peninsula. The ferry ride was about an hour long and the cost was included in the cost of our bus tickets. We were able to see a number of uninhabited islands, jumping fish, and coastal birds.

One of the islands in the Nicoya bay. 

After the ferry, we drove another hour to a town about 20 km from Montezuma. We then switched buses again and experienced a rather bumpy, dusty ride over a mountain to get to Montezuma. They dropped us off right on the beach, but in order to get to our hostel, we had to walk up a rather steep hill. Our hostel was called Luz en el Cielo that means “Light in the sky”. It was a rather cool place that was run by an American beach bum and his friends. We had the opportunity to meet a number of people from across the globe including Great Britain, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Australia, and the Netherlands. There were four rooms with a bunch of bunkbeds, two bathrooms, a kitchen, the office, and a whole bunch of hammocks. The hostel was located on the side of the mountain in the rain forest overlooking the ocean. At night we could hear the Howler monkeys. During the day, one of the white faced monkeys and a tropical bird tried to steal our food off the picnic table! 

Crazy bird eating food off my plate.

The monkey before trying to steal our lunch.

The monkey, after trying to steal our lunch.

The weather in Montezuma was the hottest that I had experienced up until this point, so, we were very eager to go to the beach. The guide books had warned us about the riptides in Montezuma. Frankly, we have been warned about riptides everywhere we have gone. Due to the temperature and geography or Costa Rica, riptides are notoriously bad. Tourists drown every week, there are person missing signs all over the place, and it hardly makes the news. There are not lifeguards at most of the beaches like there are in the states, so every time you get into the ocean you are taking your life into your own hands. I have a great respect for the power of the ocean, and I generally do not go in over my shoulders. However, Montezuma's waves were definitely humbling. Melissa and I were enjoying some good old fashion wave jumping when one wave came that was stronger than all the others. We both got hit pretty hard and flipped over a couple of times despite my attempt to dive under the wave. Once it had passed, we both found that we were no longer able to touch the bottom and were being pulled out to sea. Luckily we were both strong swimmers and I knew a thing or two about riptides. We were able to successfully swim out of it, but we never went back in past our waists after that point. Apparently there had been a strong earthquake in Chile that day, and there was a tsunami warning for our area. No one told us, but we would like to think that we survived a tiny tsunami...who knows? 

Cliff Jumping...what else?

We went on a number of walks. Of course we had to check out the famous Montezuma waterfalls, and we decided to go with our Danish and British friends that we had met. The waterfalls were gorgeous, and we were able to swim and cliff jump while we were there. In the evening, we took a walk on the beach to see the sunset. Of course, any sunset on the Pacific is supposed to be gorgeous, but due to the fact that we were on the peninsula, we were told that the sunrises are better. We met up with a local Tico who walked us to a different beach where one of the rivers flows into the ocean. There was a cool monument made out of colored rocks there. We did have a little trouble getting rid of the Tico afterwards. We ended up losing him in town.

This is the entrance to the protected area.
We were not sure exactly what the rock art was about,
 but it was pretty cool.

This is where the river meets the ocean.

All four of us were hoping for a cheap weekend. The hostel and the bus ticket were not too steep. We cooked most of our own meals in the kitchen, in fact, I spent more money on water than anything else. Like I said, it was really hot there. Melissa and I did go out for one meal, and I had the best crape and jugo de cas ever! After dark, we hung out with some of the other people at the hostel. I found out that it is very easy to fall asleep in a hammock, but in the morning I had a good amount of mosquito bites. For the second night, the hostel owner put up a mosquito net for me. 

Melissa is on the left and Emily on the right.

Overall, the trip was a huge success. I had so much fun planning everything for my own trip!

This is the sunrise we saw right before returning Sunday morning.