Montezuma!

Buenas!

What another amazing weekend! Every weekend here just keeps getting better and better. Montezuma is definitely my favorite place I have traveld to so far, although it was a pretty long travel there and back.

Montezuma is on the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica, which is on the Pacific side. It is a bit of an expat town as was Puerto Viejo, but there were a lot more locals/Spanish being spoken and it is a lot less touristy and crowded than Puerto Viejo was.

Friday
You have to take a ferry to get to Montezuma, so me and my friends left after class on Friday to catch the ferry in Puntarenas. We had to wait in Puntarenas for a couple hours so we ended up drinking quite a bit while we waited..and they served alcohol on the ferry...so by the time we got off the ferry on the other side of the water we were pretty drunk but still had another 2 hours to go before getting to Montezuma. Not the most pleasant bus ride I've ever been on.

Track 1&2 on the ferry after a lot of Imperials

Such a beautiful view from the ferry

When we got off the bus at Montezuma, we were absurdly hungry and ran to the nearest restaurant we could find. And, being the hippie expat village that it is, there were so many vegan options. I had the best hummus and falafel ever on the best foccacia bread ever. After dinner we chilled on the beach for a little but were pretty tired so we went to the hostel to sleep.

The hostel was the nicest one yet-it's actually a hotel that has one dorm-style room in it for only $10 a night. The view was iiincredible.

View from the hostel at night-moonlight on the water!

Saturday
We woke up early on Saturday to walk to the waterfall that Montezuma is best known for. It's a short and easy hike to the main waterfall (although there are some longer hikes to different waterfalls that I want to try if I return there), and it is huge and incredible.

Main Montezuma waterfall

A lot of the group stopped there, but 4 of us decided to trek up this cliff and then hike around to 2 more waterfalls that are behind the main waterfall. The hike was pretty difficult and un poco peligroso but so worth it-such a beautiful view and it was less crowded then the main waterfall.

View during the hike-those are our friends down at the bottom waterfall

This pool leads into the main waterfall

Waterfall a couple stories above the main waterfall

Blurry, but this is me jumping into the waterfall!

We swam around and did some jumping into the water before hiking down. Luckily there was anotherway down that was a lot less dangerous/scary, with more great views of the ocean.

View during the walk down

We went back to the main waterfall and swam around more (the water was so refreshing!) before calling it a day and heading back to the hostel. We ran into a bunch of howler monkeys on our way back, which was so exciting because they were the only Costa Rica monkey we had yet to see!

Baby howler monkey munching on leaves

After shower and dinner, we went to the hostel that some of our friends are staying at and played some drinking games before going out. There is only one bar in Montezuma so we danced there for a while before walking to the beach where some of my friends set up a bonfire!

USAC crew before headed out

The bonfire was so fun- at first it was just a few of us USAC students, but eventually people from all over came over to hang out around the fire. We met so many cool people who are either from Costa Rica, studying in other places, traveling around Central America, etc. It was such a great night!

Sunday
I was awoken on Sunday to the beautiful sound of Howler monkeys at around 5:30am. And by beautiful I mean loud, annoying, and scary. Here is a video that I took during the day on Saturday of what they sound like:

I was preeetty hungover on Sunday (I blame mixing wine & beer over the coarse of the night) and so sitting on the super hot beach did not appeal to me. Luckily, there was a hotel near ours that has an awesome backyard with shaded hammocks. They had no problem letting us lay in them despite the fact that we weren't staying there. It was so relaxing.

Paradise!

Then, just as we were about to grab lunch, my friend John from Alaska called me and told me he and his girlfriend, Zara, had just gotten into Montezuma!! So I changed plans and ran to find him and get lunch with him before my bus came to take me home. Such a crazy, awesome coincidence! It was so good to see him and catch up, but it made me miss Ionia a lot.

Zara, John and I

So that was my weekend! I think we are going to stay fairly local this coming weekend. There is a volcano really close to Heredia that I think we are going to go visit, and maybe go to Carnaval in Puntarenas on Saturday. We shall see!


In other news:
-I have started to have dreams in Spanish.
-I got an A in my first Spanish course =)
-There is a place that makes Tempeh on the Osa peninsula, and they just e-mailed me back and said they come into the San Jose area every month to sell tempeh. I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!
-Today I took a 5 hour nap...
-Apparently I am the only person in Costa Rica to have slept through a 6.1 level earthquake Monday morning...
-Here is a cool video that I took 2 weeks ago in Cahuita. These plants are so cool!

Feliz Dia de San Valentin!

Pura Vida,

Rachel

PS I miss everyone from home so much! I think about everyone all the time. I can't wait to see all of you when I return in May =)