Costa Rica: Day 3

Day 3’s weather was good,well if you consider high 20’s with some cloud good weather. The humidity is pretty high but I’m slowly getting used to it. I think Robyn is fine with the humidity and if it gets too hot out we just go for a swim in the ocean.

I know in the previous post I mentioned I would try and get photos of the town of Puerto Viejo, but I didn’t seem to get the camera out enough when we got into town.

Our day started at breakfast here at the Banana Azul. Robyn and I had some pretty delicious crepes with some fresh fruit. Nothing like having bananas and pineapple from their place of origin, right?

After breakfast we headed over to Playa Negra, the 5 minute walk from the breakfast table isn’t a bad thing.

It is pretty cool to have untouched jungle meet the ocean’s edge. There was a couple who were kind enough to give us a warning, they mentioned not to walk very far down the beach with my camera (Canon XSi) as there has been reports of people hiding in the bushes with machetes who will rob unsuspecting tourists of their possessions. This urked me, but we decided to put my dSLR back in the safe at the hotel, and bring out Robyn’s Pentax Optio W10.

If you are a seasoned travel photographer who does bring along their dSLR camera do you have any advice for me? I dislike not having the ability to use my camera to capture this beautiful country. I have heard of just bringing it out of the bag when you need it and put it away. Don’t flash it around to draw unnecessary attention to it. Which I thought I was doing. Oh well.

After putting the camera away (and picking up the Optio W10) we headed south towards the town of Puerto Viejo. The beach is called Playa Negra and is the of the black sand variety. Also because of this black sand, you don’t get to see the water’s clear colour like you would if you were in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. The water is just as warm (if not warmer though).

The closer we got to town the more busier the area became. We did notice that some spots the sand was white, not black. We also noticed a lot of dead coral. I guess when people come in contact with the beach, they inadvertently killed the coral that was near the shoreline.

We meandered into town and walked along the main street. Puerto Vijeo isn’t very big as it has 1 main street with a bunch of smaller side streets that sort of interconnect. It makes me think of a Caribbean version of Tofino actually. There are vendor stalls along the main road and the great thing is they don’t pester you to come see their wares. There are some also pretty cool artisans too, well from the brief look through some of the stalls. Did I mention because there are no resorts here, there none of the annoying hawkers on the beaches?

There are a bunch of restaurants, cafes and other little shops dotted throughout Puerto Viejo. We haven’t been to any restaurants as of yet, but we do have a few we are going to try out before we leave. We did stop off at the local grocery store. I’m getting used to how many Colones we get for US Dollars. We just picked up some small stuff to bring back to our hotel room. It can get pretty expensive if you eat out all the time. So we thought if we bought lunch food, ate our included breakfast here at the Banana Azul we could treat ourselves to dinner out.

After we got back to the hotel from our little adventure out to the town, we decided it was time for a swim. The water was a bit colder than it was the previous day, but that could have been due to the rain I saw off in the distance earlier. It wasn’t cold like it is back home, but it was a few degrees colder than the day before.

Robyn’s Pentax Optix W10 has it purpose amongst the camera gear. It’s great because it can be submerged into water up to 30 feet and is also dust proof. We bring it into the ocean every chance we get, I’m still trying to get the perfect wave photo, but it’s not always the quickest at taking a photo.

Photos Taken So Far: 262

Next To Come: Tuesday 29th – Nothing Planned

** Update:

We would just like to say Happy Birthday to my Dad as Tuesday the 29th is his birthday!