April 24, 2018 – May 4, 2018

One more beach camp on the Nicoya Peninsula, this time near the town of Malpais. And again, heavenly. We walked down the beach one night for a drink and some ceviche as we watched the sun set. On one afternoon, we walked to the nearby town to a little store, then returned to our camp by the beach, not seeing another person until we neared our campsite. Riders on horseback would occasionally wander past between us and the shore. It was beautiful and peaceful and so, if you are not tired of seeing them yet, here are some more beach and sunset pictures.

We took the ferry from the Nicoya Peninsula to the mainland, then drove up into the mountains to stay a night at Finca Noemy, near the town of San Ramon.  San Ramon, although small, is known as The City of Presidents and Poets and five different presidents of Costa Rica have come from this town… as well as many poets (thus the nickname!).

The driveway through the Finca to our camping spot was very narrow, lined with trees, and at one 90 degree corner, we scraped the rear running board along the trunk of a tree and bent it. At least it was just the running board and not the truck or camper, which is what I had thought when I first heard the sound of metal crunching.  Derek removed the running board to straighten it and once we have new hardware he is hoping to reinstall it. He likes the running boards, calling them his early warning system.  On our 6 month anniversary of being on the road Derek joked that we are 1/4 of the way through our trip and, fittingly, we have ripped off 1/4 of the running boards!

We had a nice grassy area to camp in for the night and had the first fire that we have had in ages…we really had expected to cook over a fire a lot more than we have.

The next day we headed into town to visit a vet.  Piper had developed some itchy sores on her chest and neck and I was worried that it was mange.  We found a wonderful vet who assured us it was not mange, but rather just some bites or bacterial skin infection like acne.  She gave us some disinfecting dog shampoo, some antibiotics and some anti-histamines and we were on our way, glad we didn’t have to start referring to Piper as “the mangy mutt”.

We drove through the highlands of Coast Rica, visited a small town called Zarcero, then headed towards the Orosi Valley, which our guidebook had said was a popular driving trip from the capital of San Jose and was known for its great mountain vistas.  The spot we had planned on camping at was full (it only fits two overlanders), so we ended up camping along a river next to a restaurant for the night, for 3000 colones, which is about $6.50….and it was a lovely spot.

We continued on the next day, driving around the outskirts of Limon on the Caribbean coast, then down to Cahuita, where we camped for 2 nights outside of The Reggae Bar, where they continuously played Bob Marley songs…. There are so many good reggae artists, but everywhere we go where they have the word “reggae” in their name, it seems to be all Bob all the time… maybe they are afraid that is all that tourists know or will want to hear….don’t know.

We had a very rainy hike in the coastal jungle in the National Park down the beach, and then played some pool in a nearby bar, we hid from the rain and played cribbage later on.

From there we drove south to Puerto Viejo. We stayed at a cool hostel right on the beach, but unfortunately they had a dog that kept barking and trying to attack Piper, it was just too stressful for everyone involved, so the next day we headed 8 km further south to yet another little beach town Playa Uva.

Playa Uva was heavenly.  We were able to park among palm trees on the sand with a great view of the ocean from our door.  The water was warm, the sand was fine and sugary, the waves provided just the right amount of fun and the dogs were friendly!

Reluctantly, we packed up, left our beautiful little camping spot and headed towards our next border crossing.  We were headed to Panama and had a booking in a small apartment for the next four nights on an island in Bocas Del Toro.