Monday, January 19, 2009

Cahuita: The Perfect Beach Getaway!

I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 430am Saturday. Lauren and I made last minute plans to take an early morning bus to Cahuita Beach, 4 hours from San Jose on the Caribbean side.We decided this was a pilot run of our upcoming "cheap" beach weekends. How little could we spend on a beach weekend? We want to prove that we can go to the beach for the same price as staying in San Jose. (the end result being that we never need to stay in the city on the weekends) Lauren bought a loaf of bread and a bag of apples. I brought the jar of peanut butter. We arrived to the beach at 10am. Cahuita is a small beach town that you can cover by foot in 5 minutes. Notice the dirt roads.After walking out of the bus station, we stopped at a couple places to ask prices. We stumbled upon the Cabinas Safari where we paid a measly $10 per person. Private room with bath (hot water) 2 beds, fan and a porch with a hammock! The Cahuita National Park was beautiful, there is a short trail to hike, but we only had flip flops. We were satisfied with lounging in the sand with our books and watching/listening to the Howler Monkeys, and posing on fallen trees. Why yes! That is a new yellow skirt. It is beach-o-licious, isn't it! Yellow makes me happy these days!Something else that makes me happy is gallo pinto, this is why we decided to "allow" ourselves one real meal. Breakfast of gallo pinto (seasoned black beans in rice) and platanos (fried bananas) at Parquecito 2 doors down from our cabin. Breakfast splurge: $5
Otherwise we stuck to our plan of peanut butter sandwiches. "choosy girls choose JIF" While strolling the city, we came across a flea market. On a rack, sitting in the sun, there was this fur coat.
I said to Lauren, "Can that be right? $2 for this?" German, definitely vintage, and for COLD weather. How it got to Cahuita Costa Rica is a mystery. Lauren will be living in NYC next winter. Yes, I encouraged her to buy it. (she models it here) Even after my friend Marco told me about this horrible PETA documentary he just watched about skinning animals. I couldn't even listen to him describe what was being done. Now I'm feeling quite guilty. Poor Lamby-Lamb! I am an animal lover, I swear. I played with this cute little puppy whose "home" seemed to be right outside our place. We couldn't stop playing with him, I wanted to take him in our room, give him a bath, and cuddle with him in my bed.
OK, so where did our money go this weekend??
  • 2 buses $15
  • 2 taxis $6
  • Cabin $10
  • 4 coffees $4
  • breakfast $5
  • water $1.50
  • Internet $1
  • bathroom $.15
  • scarf @flea market $.75 (cream w/ red feathers)
  • green straw hat $14 This was a real splurge and really should not be counted since I could have done without.
  • TOTAL = $57.40

The "without hat" total sounds so much better at $43.40, but oh well. I'm happy with a beach getaway for under $60. Below, you see the hat that broke the bank. You understand why I couldn't resist, right?The blanket I'm crocheting is getting really big! I worked on it the whole 4 hour bus ride. Its looking beautiful and was also very useful as a pillow on the trip home. What projects/crafts have you been working on lately?

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