Montezuma

My Spring break was spent in a place called Montezuma. Of the 7 people that I was with, two or three of them had been figuring out all the details. When it came to the specifics, I just was going with the flow and following their lead- I had no idea where or what Montezuma was until the day we headed there!

We took a few different buses and walked some good distances before reaching the ferry that would save us hours of travel (because Montezuma is on the bottom of a peninsula- in order to drive to it, you have to go far up north, then west, and then way south on a 6 or something hour drive)! The ferry was cool and was a 70 minutes trip... once we got to the peninsula, we had a 2 hour bus ride and then arrived at Montezuma.

This is how wikipedia describes Montezuma, "Montezuma is a town in Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica which began as a remote fishing village and has gained popularity since the 1980s among tourists on a budget." So there you have it. It's a small little area with probably about 12 or so different restaurants, multiple hostiles, a grocery store, souvenir shops, etc. When we got there, we went to the closest hostile we could find and, when their pricing seemed good, we bought rooms for the night. It was $10 a night and the hostile had beds, free lockers that they give a key to, free wifi, and running water... and at night when it was really hot, they did have some fans... but if the power goes out, fans don't help much :p.

For dinner our first night most of us got typical Costa Rican cuisine. It was the cheapest thing we could find and we all were missing it after out 10 days in Nicaragua! On our first morning, we got breakfast from the grocery store (I had cereal with a little milk carton). After breakfast, we prepared PB&J's and then set off down the coast on a journey to a waterfall we heard of that flows directly into the ocean. Some people said it was 45 minutes away and others 2 hours, so we prepared for the worst.

The walk was fun and went for who knows how many miles.. with frequent breaks to explore the rock formations and scenery. At one point I found a large bamboo stick and enjoyed using it as a walking stick and a support as I crossed little ravines in the rocks we explored. 

Up on rocks with my stick!

After 2 or so hours of walking and exploring, we got to our destination.

We couldn't really go under the waterfall because there were huge rocks underneath it. However, we did find a path to climb up and could walk around above the waterfall. We ate lunch up near the trees that can kind of be seen in the second picture and then spent the rest of the afternoon making our way back to Montezuma.

That night we found large mango trees all around our hostile and, with the use of a huge bamboo stick like the one I found walking, we collected 20-30 smaller mangos and had an awesome, free dinner/snack!

On the second day, we went the other way down the beach, which was much more of a popular destination. After walking for only one hour during our first day expedition, there was little to no one in either direction. However, during the second day, we encountered many people as we made the 15~ minute walk to a group of nearby waterfalls. The waterfalls were awesome and we spent a few hours jumping into the water beneath them- some jumped from on top.. not me though (I'm not that hardcore). 

Actually getting to where they were standing (in the 2nd picture) was pretty freaky because you had to hug the wall and kind of rock climb across. I jumped once from where Bailey (in the green) was standing but didn't do anything more with this waterfall.. it kind of freaked me out.

You were not supposed to jump off of the first waterfall (seen in the pictures). However, many people jumped from the waterfall above the one seen here. It was about half this waterfall's size and the jump didn't require any momentum so it was much safer. Above that waterfall (the 2nd one) was an even smaller set of 2 little waterfalls plus a rope swing that went into the body of water.

This was the view from on top of the "Third" waterfall area

and here is a picture of me swinging into the water.

After a good hunk of time at the falls, we went back towards where we explored the first day in hopes of building a shelter and finding a good place to sleep on the beach.

Only 45 minutes from the hostile, we set up on this "long beach." The sand was smooth and the beach was long and wide. Driftwood was everywhere along the tree line and we used it to construct an awesome little camp and sleeping site.

We got a fire started and had a good fortress set up behind the fire area to sleep behind so that if the tide rose more than we expected, it would be stopped. It was beautiful and we were all euphoric. Then out of the blue some random lady showed up and pooped on our party. She explained to us that the beach is protected because of sea turtle hatcheries and that we needed to put out our fire and leave (in nicer terms). 

In the dusk we walked back towards our hostile and eventually found a small little area where there had seemed to have been a campfire set up recently. In the dark we worked to get a fire started to cook our hotdogs we'd had with us. Once the fire got started, things went smooth. Except that hotdogs here have plastic covering them which we didn't know until I discovered really hot plastic on the hotdog I was trying to eat! 

We all spent some time laying down in the sand with our heads on the sheet that Katey brought staring at the stars, sharing whatever pieces of astronomy knowledge we had, and trying to spot as many shooting stars as possible. At one point, we saw headlights coming directly for us and for some stupid reason we all thought we were going to get run over (it was a good distance away) and we ran behind the tree and ducked down in the leaves. We looked super sketchy and quickly realized how idiotic we look... and then went back to stargazing.

Sleeping on the beach was tough. I had brought my really thin and poor quality towel that I purchased just for Nicaragua (because I could fit it in my backpack) and I slept curled up on it. I woke up about every 45 minutes to switch sides because my neck would be cramping up and just about every time I would get up, I could see some of my friends sitting up because they were struggling as well. Also, there were little hermit crabs all over the beaches... they made me a little paranoid at night but during they day, they were awesome.

thats me sleeping on the left!

I forgot to mention that we had a hermit crab race during our first day expedition.. it was hilarious and awesome and my little guy finished in 2nd place behind the winner by seriously a millisecond.

Me and the other Kyle got breakfast with the group that morning and then left for home through pretty much the same route we came. The rest of the group stayed another day, went to a national park a good ways away and then slept on the beach again.

It was an awesome Spring break but I was relieved to get back and stop living out of a backpack.

And as always, there's more I could tell but just not enough time or attention span in the world to do that right now.

Thanks