Temblor en Puerto Viejo – Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

By: Lisa Britt

Temblor en Puerto Viejo
Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

Sitting, once again at an oasis, hidden inside of the “not so beautiful” city of San Jose, Costa Rica, I anxiously waited for my dinner. I had thought about this dinner, time and time again. I found myself back in the grips of this magnificent country. Sitting at “My” hotel (Grano de Oro) overlooking the Volcanoes.

This time I had my best friend with me, we decided to check out the Caribbean side, a little town called Puerto Viejo. It is south, near the border of Panama, about 3 hours from San Jose. We had done the touristy thing by arranging hotels in advance, hiring a driver, and checking out everything we could before we even left New York City. (Not my choice but his, in order to ease his mind in Central America).

Hiring a driver was a costly but good idea, because he stopped for lunch in a small village and pulled over to buy a “pipa”, which was coconut juice in a baggie. You bite the bottom corner of the plastic bag, creating a small hole to sip out the coconut juice. Delicious!

It is a mountainous drive leaving the city. The driver stopped for photos, and gave us lots of information. You drive pass all the fruit factories such as Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte on a two lane road, usually following large fruit trucks for miles until you can find a dangerous passing zone on a mountain side curve with no idea what lies around the bend. FUN!

We reach Limon, the largest city on the Caribbean side. It is a city rich with Caribbean culture. The music and food on this coast are totally different than its Pacific counterparts. Everything is so rich, juicy and creamy. The music has less salsa, and more reggae. The tourists are also very different, they are more traveled, backpacker types, not looking for a resort but a “cabina” to crash in for the night. (Cabinas are small hotels that usually do not have TV, AC or screens on the windows. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some have pools and a bar…but, they are usually cheaper than whatever you would find on the internet.)

The driver makes a right onto an even smaller, but yet still paved road, and travels along the coast. Nearly and hour on this beach road, we pass by lots of adorable communities. Finally, crossing a one lane bridge, we enter Puerto Viejo. It has black sand beaches, and small fishing boats anchored in the bay.

I could not wait to get out of the car as we drove by little beachy restaurants, bars, and cabinas. It was a small village that reminded me of being at a campground as a child.

We pulled up to “Casa Verde”. A woman named Carolina greeted us and took us to our room. It was a large, clean room with mosquito netting around the beds (about $30 a night, expensive for Puerto Viejo). On the Pacific side, I had stayed in resorts, and smaller hotels that had basic amenities (TV, air, etc). Although this cabina looked well manicured, I was not sure I could handle really “roughing it” – only to find out later, that roughing it was exactly what I was missing in my life!

Being a bartender in NYC, I had asked for a margarita in many of the restaurants in Puerto Viejo. No one seemed to know how to make one, although, they gladly let me get behind the bar and make them myself! On more than one night, I bartended for a few hours or more, just for fun. The locals found it refreshing, as I taught them new drinks, plus they got to play backgammon while I worked (as they did every single night).

On our third day there, we had already met a group of people who rented bikes with us, about $5 per week – bikes, not renting friends – that’s free. We met each other for breakfast, lunch and dinner…traveling between each others cabinas, we quickly became close friends. My best friend, Doug, had gone to the bathroom at a beach bar, and left his wallet. Upon returning to his seat, he noticed it was gone. An American couple next to us said that they were in the bathroom and recalled an older “American” man with a beard holding a wallet in his hands looking for its owner. All of our new friends jumped on our bikes and rode around the town looking for anyone who had a beard.

We find an older man, with a beard. The man claims that he does not know anything about the wallet, but he can help us out, and guarantees that he will find it by 7 a.m. the next morning. Later that night we see him walking home with enough groceries for the entire month. This was our first clue.

Doug decided to try and call American Express about his lost Traveler’s Checks. There was only one pay phone in the town, and after trying to make a complaint with the local police station (who had chickens and a horse inside of it), we decide to buy a calling card, to call AMEX.

We wait in a line that took about 45 minutes for the only pay phone in town. I tried numerous times to actually speak to a human being. Finally I hear, “Hello, thank you for calling American Express.” At that moment, the ground started to rumble. Being from New York, it felt like a subway, or a large truck shaking the ground. A lady came running out from the bodgea next to us yelling “Temblor, Temblor”. I ran the word through the dictionary in my mind. Temblor? Temblor?…”EARTHQUAKE?” What?

I have never been in an earthquake. The power in the town shut down, I lost my connection with American Express, but I was more excited about actually being in an earthquake to care about the traveler’s checks at the moment. My feet were moving in two different directions. It was the strangest thing I have ever felt, and the feeling just did not seem to end.

At that moment, one of the guys we had made friends with, came running from his cabina. He warned us of a tidal wave. “WHAT?” A small amount of water flowed into the town, but nothing to freak out about (now I know, to run for the hills, after what happened in Indonesia).

I felt like I was high as a kite. Never being in an earthquake, and stuck in this primitive town, it somehow felt perfect to me. The next day we found out that it was a 6.5 quake. There were no tall buildings to worry about and there were no injuries at all. Only a temporary loss of power that I have already come to know are common in Costa Rica.

At 7 a.m., don’t you know, the man with the beard came to our cabina claiming he found Doug’s wallet. We were taken to the “China Man” (the only man in town who exchanges money). They charged us $100 to give us the wallet back, with our travelers checks, our passports, drivers licenses, etc. We already knew that it was our “original guy” who kept the wallet in the first place, but, we wanted our ID. Doug paid him, and we went about our way.

It was our time to leave Puerto Viejo, and return to San Jose. Although we had hired a taxi to dive us there, Doug was now more comfortable in the country and we decided on taking the bus for $6. The local bus pulls up, and takes you to San Jose. It is very much like a “Greyhound” in the States. It has bathrooms with air, and is very comfortable. The only problem is, it stops for an illegal Panamanian search every now and then. Men with large guns get on the bus to check your passport. It was an unsettling feeling.

We were on the bus, in rainy season, going back to San Jose in the “pouring” rain on a mountain road. We had just been scammed with our wallet, been in an earthquake, and a small tidal wave. I was looking out of the window of the bus, when I see a huge boulder bouncing down the mountain towards our bus. The boulder lands directly in front of our bus, and we are now stuck for HOURS on this mountain road. The place the boulder came from has now become a mudslide. We wait for a bulldozer to plow us out.

After all of this, we arrive back at my favorite hotel in San Jose, Grano De Oro. I took a long hot shower, watched CNN, and got used to being back in a city. After everything we had been through, I still would prefer to be out there living “La Pura Vida”. Natural disasters aside, and being scammed to get our wallet back, there is something very real about being out there away from everything.