There’s a little road that traces the edge of the sea along Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. It’s mostly unpaved, lots of potholes and makes for an extremely slow, uncomfortable journey. It’s more than worth it.
I traveled here originally when we made a visa run that time we were living in Bocas del Toro, Panama. I visited again a few months later on my way back from San Jose, so I’ve explored this road and the towns along it north and south.
You bump along wondering why 20 minutes of road takes two hours to traverse. We ran into more delays and creeped along for four hours until we finally arrived in Puerto Viejo, hungry, stiff and cranky. It was just getting dark.
I don’t regret a moment of it, because that unpleasant journey lead me to what has become one of my favorite places on the planet.
Here lies a tiny slice of the afterlife.
It’s quiet, not many cars but lots of bikers, backpackers and surfers. It reminds me of Bocas but being on a coast with easier access to mainland resources makes the area softer and more friendly than its neighboring cousin.
Oh, we were hungry, so when the dulcet tones of coconut milk curry called us from Coco Cielo restaurant, we walked straight in, sat down, ordered a beer.
Only when the travel knots began to relax did I notice the smell of marijuana in the air. Is that my imagination? Is marijuana legal in Costa Rica that someone would sit openly in the fading daylight rolling and smoking a joint without a care in the world?
The name of the man and his marijuana, let’s call him M, schooled us in the legalities of weed in Costa Rica. It’s decriminalized. If you’re caught with it, assuming it’s a small enough amount for personal use and not for sale, your stash will be taken, stomped on. Nothing more. Drug use isn’t considered a crime. It’s more of a sickness.
M. joined us at our table. He’s one of those characters that you meet on the road. You know the kind. You never quite know if what they say is true, but you love the story enough to suspend disbelief.
Originally from Amsterdam, M. traveled all over this world. His exploits in business have lead him through the dark underbelly of drugs, bribes and even prison. We promised to drop by his pizza place at some point and went off to find the place we were staying.
And then I fell in love!
What a perfect place to stay! Loco Natural, a gorgeous piece of land just outside of Puerto Viejo, filled with cacao, pineapple, guayabana, noni, nutmeg, teak and more.
I’d never seen fresh nutmeg before. The nutmeg comes from the fruit of the female plant. On the outside, the fruit looks like a green plum, and the nut inside has a deep red web-like covering. You peel that to extract the hard, woody nutmeg seed.
There’s nothing quite like picking a fruit from behind your house to use in cooking. Our neighbors came over for dinner, and we made seco — an alcoholic drink distilled from sugar cane — with warm milk, honey and a final touch of nutmeg grated on top.
Photo by Harvey Barrison
Exploring the coast
I woke every morning to the orchestral swell of a thousand birds and the roaring gale of howler monkeys. They shook me from sleep before sunrise. I sat writing by hand in my journal until Noah and Lila woke and we’d go to a breakfast of fresh fruit and coffee.
We trekked through the jungle then went to play on the beach. Lila and I did yoga together, ran around and covered every single inch of ourselves with sand. Noah collected the flattest rocks and skipped them across the warm, blue water.
Later in the day, we explored the road, making our way down the coast to the last town, Manzanillo. It’s all restaurants, bars, hotels, places offering guided tours of the area, surfing, bike rentals, bodegas. You can zipline, climb a mountain, bird watch and hug a sloth.
We missed the last bus back from Manzanillo but Roberto, you can call him Goofy, offered to drive us back to Puerto Viejo.
Goofy was born on this coast and is related to 90% of the people around. He also has family in Bocas and all over the Chiriqui provence in Panama.
He gave us advice about buying land. Don’t buy near the coast, instead go deeper into the jungle. He gave gardening tips. Once you’ve bought your deep jungle land, clear just enough space to grow your own food. The rich land supports anything. Bok choy, squash, lettuce, tomatoes and any tropical fruit you can imagine.
Tempting. Very tempting. I’ve always said there’s no such thing as paradise, but were I to create my own, it would look a lot like the coast between Puerto Viejo and Manzanillo. A place to escape. A place to find peace. A place that inspires you to write and then does you the service of providing enough subject matter to keep you busy for years.
It took more than a week and five showers before I stopped finding Caribe beach sand in my hair. Yeah, I was sad when it was gone.
