Cycling, sloths and surf

Today was a great day. We hired some bikes and headed south (technically it's east down the coast, but whatever) from Puerto Viejo, eventually ending up 13 km away in Manzanillo. We rode our beach cruisers along the road (paved only part of the way), which was surrounded by lush, thick jungle. We could hear tons of birds, bugs, monkeys and at times, waves crashing on the nearby beaches. We stopped about 7 km out of town at Punta Uva, a perfect beach of white sand, clear water and jungle. There were a few people about, but not many, especially considering how huge this beach is. In fact, we have been amazed seeing one perfect beach after another, stretching from Puerto Limon all the way to Manzanillo. And so few people about, NO hotels, and little tourism. It really is a form of paradise.

In Punta Uva, where not one house or building can be seen from the beach (and really there are very few as it is), we spent a few hours in the water, floating about in the gentle waves. We had packed our lunch and set about making a delicious tuna sandwich...this time we were careful not to let the monkeys get our avocado! Nige collected some bamboo and driftwood to try to make a seat, but it collapsed halfway through. After eating, we had another quick dip and got on our bikes to keep riding. We stopped to watch a group of howler monkeys in a tree along the road, and nearly missed seeing the perfectly camoflauged sloth sitting on a branch of the same tree. We also saw a few toucans in a nearby bush, our first close-up experience with these beautiful birds.

We arrived in Manzanillo, a tiny town on the edge of the Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Gandoca Manzanillo, a national park. There are a few restaurants and cabinas in town, perfect beaches (of course!) and lots of fishing boats. We treated ourselves to a Cuba Libre at the one and only pub while we watched the locals pass by under the balcony. We hopped back on our bikes and started biking back to Puerto Viego, stopping to see some more sloths. We stopped at Playa Cocles, yet another huge, gorgeous beach, where we spent a few hours body surfing in the huge waves. We made it back to PV just in time to return our bikes at 6:00.

We had a shower and headed to a place to share a plate of nachos for dinner, where we watched some of the movie "Guess Who." We didn't stay for the whole thing though, since I had no glasses and couldn't see much, despite the fact that it's played on a huge screen. Back at our hotel, we put some DEET on (we have been getting lots of mossie bites at night and there is nowhere to hang our nets) and quickly drifted off to sleep.