I was punched in the gut and slapped on the face by the humidity and heat when we first arrived in Puerta Viejo, and I wasn’t sure I was going to survive the simulated jungle shack experience in our “boutique” accommodations where everything is always a little damp and the “sounds of nature” are part of the fun—there are no windows so you don’t have a choice but enjoy a million cicadas buzzing, a hundred howlers howling, and dozen geckos chirping, day and night. But I was now king of the pivot, and by the second night I had acclimatized enough to really enjoy myself.
We spent a lot of time on the beach, slapping my brand-new slides up and down the black-sand shore, dipping in and out of the (saltier than the ocean) Caribbean Sea, so I didn’t carry my digicam around as much as elsewhere. Here are some phone captures instead.
Puerto Viejo is a fascinating melting pot of tourist trap, working class town, and hippie commune, with pockets of gated boutique experiences dotted alongside the lesser-valued Playa Negra (“black beach”) with the most gorgeous volcanic sand that’s apparently avoided by most tourists who much prefer the crystalline white sands of other nearby beaches — the low-key racialized politics of it all is a little on the nose! But this undervaluing meant that the beach is less busy and mostly frequented by “regular” folks, both local and of the backpacking variety.
The town has a sizable population of Jamaican descent, so the Caribbean vibes were really peaking, with reggaeton blasting out of car radios, and not just the souvenir shops. But the other sizable population was surprisingly that type of granola bar and chakra bracelet European type that seemed to be running a lot of the businesses; our hotel was run by a couple from Barcelona, and I caught a few Italian and French accents from different café owners and artisans around town. It gave the place a weird sort of pirate’s cove cosmopolitan feel, because everything felt a little homegrown — one American lady even approached us on the street carrying a box of fresh, homemade cookies asking if we’d like to by one for a dollar. It’s not the kind of street hawking you see everywhere, and the longer we hung around, the more I felt okay with being a little damp all the time, and a little grubbier and less rested than I’d prefer.
There’s an indigenous population of “Bribri” or Abicetava people nearby that people kept telling us we should take a tour to visit, but we found that very discomforting because 1. we don’t know anything about their history or culture and don’t think that we should be learning that for the first time in yet another curated tourist experience; 2. we’d want time to research the organizations facilitating these encounters to make sure they’re not exploitative and would much rather just meet a native person and be invited instead of barging into their villages on a tour bus; 3. I really don’t like the idea of gawking at people’s “way of life” like they’re a troupe of monkeys and don’t really buy the economic benefit argument because no people anywhere has ever blended the public/private realms in that way without being somehow coerced, even if simply through deprivation. Maybe one day, in better circumstances, but not this time.
Having said all that, we did end up finding an amazing piece of indigenous art that we liked and purchased before we even knew what it was, because it was so beautiful—a stylized jaguar face scratched on a coconut shell with the word NAMÚ written over it (we collect cat-themed art on our travels). The cashier told us what it was after we’d picked it out, which made it even more special.