Next Up: Puerto Viejo!

Our final weekend trip was to Puerto Viejo, the Caribbean Beach of Costa Rica. This really was the Caribbean - I thought I saw Bob Marley about 20 times the whole weekend!

The coast here is a lot less pretty than Manuel Antonio on the Pacific side of the country. The beaches are dirtier in appearance, and there are places where it is dangerous to swim.

a view of the beach from the street our hotel was on

We were split into two groups of hotels for this weekend stay, and our hotel was gorgeous. We were in raised log cabin-style rooms, all with beautiful amenities, hammocks, air-conditioning (REALLY needed there!!), and nice, thick comforters.

there's the door to our hotel room!

The other group was put up in a hotel that had little cabins. The beds had mosquito nets on top, and although they had no air-conditioning, they had some really pretty bathrooms and a nice bar in the lobby.

Jen in her mosquito-netted bed at their hotel!

We ate dinner at a great outdoor pizza place in town that had delicious cocktails. Because we were such a big group, our food took a while, so we were brought bruschetta on the house - the BEST bruschetta I have ever had in my entire life!

At the restaurant, a Tico named Edwin and his son provided entertainment with guitar-playing, singing, and drumming. He performed all Bob Marley (a common theme in Puerto Viejo, of course), and we really enjoyed him. He even got me up there to perform “No Woman, No Cry” with him, and later, Dan, Chris, and I went up there and sang our Costa Rican version of Margaritaville. I think Edwin liked us!

jammin to some Bob Marley with Edwin and his son was so fun!

Later, we went to a bar/club right on the ocean. Here, there were little tables with candles by the ocean’s edge. It was really neat - very different from anything I’d seen before.

The beach the next day was really fun. We spent most of the time in the water, since it was so hot out.

cooling off in the water in Puerto Viejo

We concluded our Puerto Viejo trip with some shopping. Again, there were lots of street vendors along with the little shops on the road, and I got some great souvenirs for friends and family.

It was sad to return to Heredia knowing that the next time we left the town we would be leaving for the U.S.!

Costa Rican Nightlife in Heredia

all the girls at Tragaldabas

While the nightlife in America is typically big from Thursday to Saturday, Costa Rican nightlife is raging on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to Saturday.

Our group's favorite night of the week in Heredia was Monday's ladies' nights at "FoFo," a club in town.  I can still remember us all texting each other back in the US after we came home from our trip saying, "Tomorrow is FOFO! Let's go!"

At FoFo, every girl was given three drink tickets at the door (raffle-ticket style), good for any draft beer.  The Costa Rican beer available everywhere was Cerveza Imperial, an all-natural ingredient brew.  I was not a fan of Imperial, but a lot of those in our group sure were! 

On those Mondays, would usually find ourselves dancing at FoFo for the duration of the night. The little Ticas would crowd all around the boys in our group, and loooved dancing with the tall, American boys.

those Ticas LOVED our American boys!

Much like clubs in the United States, a DJ with a microphone would make rounds and let people speak in the microphone.  At one point, Chris, a student in our group, got to beatbox into the mic.  I loved trying my Spanish in the microphone, too!

Sometimes we would see Roberto, our school's driver who I have mentioned before, out on the town, who once even gave Dana and me a ride back to our home-stay house so we wouldn't have to pay for a taxi.  That was really nice and a lot less stressful than having to go through giving the taxi drivers directions to our house.

Other nightclubs we tried out in Costa Rica included La Choza, Boulevar, and Tragaldabas, the latter of which took us a looong time to be able to pronounce!

Since La Choza had an upstairs and was more of a "hangout" bar, it our least favorite.  We all just had too much fun dancing!

Boulevar, however, served huge "cylinders" of beer with any number of glasses you wish.  The cylinders were like a little tabletop keg, and we spent a lot of our time sharing them among our group on our nights out.

Tragaldabas was a techno dance club.  It was always extremely crowded, and my girlfriends and I spent a lot of time trying to fend of the Ticos with excuses that one of our guy friends in the group was our "novio," or "boyfriend."  After complaining about the creep factor to my teacher in class, she suggested I switch my ring to my left-hand ring finger and tell the pushy Ticos that I was engaged.  This rarely deterred them, however.

as you can see from Dana's face in the middle, some Tico men can be pretty creepy...

Techno is pretty huge in bars and clubs in Costa Rica.  When we weren't listening to techno, there would be top-40 music playing from the states.  

A lot of clubs were strictly latin salsa dance clubs, as well, and our group loved showing off our Intercultura dance class skills all night long.  It was quite a workout on the dance floor!  When we would be showing off our moves, many Ticos would join in and dance along with us.  I had an interesting night at one of the latin dance clubs when a little old man danced with me for about an hour.  I'm pretty sure he was under 5 feet tall.

All in all, we had a lot of fun exploring the Costa Rican nightlife!  Some Monday nights, I find myself longing for another ladies night at FoFo.