Tag: Surfing

Caribbean vibes, surfing and stuffing our faces in Puerto Viejo!

I was probably more excited to go to Puerto Viejo than anywhere we’ve been so far. This however has nothing to do with Puerto Viejo itself, but the fact that I was here 21 years ago with Tom and Nadia during the summer holidays after our first year at University. I have many fond, if slightly hazy memories of Costa Rica, and remember Puerto Viejo as a lazy little Caribbean town with hippy vibes, good food and a hammock hostel off the beach where we spent a few days relaxing.

Obviously a lot has changed in twenty years. We arrived in Puerto Viejo at the end of a short drive from Siquirres in Ingrid’s car. Ingrid is the owner of the Spanish school and travelling classroom, although for various reasons we haven’t seen much of her during the trip. Ingrid suggested a stop for an ice cream in the town which was a great start to the week. Afterwards we drove to the hostel and checked in.

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Montañita: Surfing and Cocktails

On the roof at Montañita Spanish School
On the roof at Montañita Spanish School

The small coastal town of Montañita was our final stop with the travelling classroom. We were keen to explore Montañita so we agreed to get the bus from Manta together with our travelling classroom friends Stephanie and Jacqueline at 09:30 in the morning. We arranged to share a taxi to the bus station so that we all arrived together and, since we were the furthest away from the bus station, we got in a taxi at 08:30 and headed over to Stephanie’s. Stephanie was already waiting for us on the main road (5 minutes early, thank you Swiss efficiency) so we headed over to pick up Jacqueline. We arrived 5 minutes early to the spot where Jacqueline had told us that she would meet us. She’d told us that there was a café next door to her house, but we couldn’t see any sign of it so we drove on a little further. I spoke to Jacqueline on the phone and got a slightly confusing response. Eventually after 5 minutes of driving around we put the taxi driver on the phone to the father at Jacqueline’s house and he explained where to go, back to exactly where we’d started, we would have found it easily except that the sign for the café was missing! Relieved and still with enough time we headed to the bus station. At the bus station the taxi driver pointed out the right bus.

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