Costa Rica: Puerto Viejo

800C = £1; 500C = $1. Dollars widely accepted as well as Colones.
Tap water in CR is drinkable.

We left Bubba's with sad faces. It's been one of our favourite hostels due to the back deck on the water and friendly atmosphere. We got a boat to Bocas Town and then switched to another boat to take us back to the mainland. There we were accosted by a ton of touts and got a ride for the 40 mins to the border for $20. Two easy stamps and a walk across a bridge (back in time an hour) and we were in our eighth country: Costa Rica!

We took a chicken bus to Puerto Viejo ($3.50) which stopped a lot and took about an hour and a half. Overall the journey took 4 hours which is the same as that quoted by private transfers but cost us $10 less each.

We checked out a few places and ended up in the Lionfish Hostel, a very basic place in the process of being redone with a nice communal area but quite skanky rooms - Princess Anna isn't impressed but she's learning to slum it. For $20 you can't complain too much.

It was almost sunny (hasn't rained all day!!) so we went to lie on the beach however the clouds came over almost immediately so we went for a wander around the small town. PV is a really lovely place; very touristy but tons of cute bars and restaurants and a nice, chilled vibe - we got offered plenty of space cookies! We considered staying another day but we really need to get a wiggle on. It's definitely a place you could stay a while. As in Bocas they speak Caribbean 'English' or Spanish.

We got some boat tickets for tomorrow - again they tried to get us to buy the $70 transfer but we opted for the public bus which is far cheaper. However there are few boats to our next destination so we wanted to ensure a space.

We went to Outback Jack's for dinner, a funky Aussie place crazily decorated, with tons of glasses everywhere (the owner said he likes to steal them from blind people?!). Anna had calamari (good but not to Panama standards), I had a veggie wrap which was stuffed full of salad and fruit and was amazing - just what I'd been craving after a couple of days of meh food. Both came with chunky chips and a fruit smoothie (11,000C).Read more