road trip

This weekend, Matt and I traveled to the southern part of the Nicoya Peninsula to the tiny beach town of Montezuma. We rented a small four wheel drive vehicle for this journey, which was about a four and a half hour drive from our home in Samara. Although most of the drive was smooth sailing, there was a 25 kilometer stretch of deeply rutted, extremely mountainous, dirt road strewn with loose gravel and sand that took us an hour to travel each way. Since guard rails aren't common in Costa Rica, I felt pretty sure that we were going to plummet over the edge at any moment. Other than these hazards, the drive was really pretty, as we traversed green pastures and scenic farmland and enjoyed frequent views of the Gulf of Nicoya, and I have to give props to Matt for skilled and cautious driving.

Montezuma is an interesting little town. It's a lot smaller than Samara, not even a stop sign, and it's literally the end of the road on the southeastern side of the peninsuala. The town seems to be populated by an equal mix of Ticos, hippies and Europeans, a combination which makes for some good people-watching. We spent most of Saturday on two hikes. The first was a short walk through the woods to a waterfall above the town. It was everything that you'd imagine a tropical waterfall to be with a deep swimming hole beneath and cliffs for jumping off.

Second we went on a much longer hike along the beach. I read that there was another waterfall about five miles north of Montezuma, only accesible by walking along the coast. No roads access the beach north of town, and we walked for miles along totally deserted coastline. I must concede that the "waterfall" -  a mere trickle - was a bit anticlimatic. However, we climbed up on the cliff above the falls and had some pretty spectacular views.

I feel like I have to acknolwedge that there was a really disturbing amount of trash along this undeveloped coast. Although there seems to be a generally casual attitude about littering in Costa Rica, this trash clearly washed in from the ocean. I guess it must be something about the currents in that area because in addition to trash, there were huge amounts of wood that also had washed up on the shore. Anyway, the garbage was gross and it definitely saddens me to think about how poorly we as a society treat our oceans. 

All in all though, an awesome weekend trip. At the same time, Samara feels like home now, and I'm excited to resume our routine tomorrow of surfing, reading and walking on the beach.