Cahuita Photo Essay

Cahuita wasn't my first choice destination for an Autumn getaway, but almost all the others I'd investigated to the north of Antigua appeared to be far too waterlogged in late September. (I'm particularly glad I stayed away from Veracruz for example.)

By the time I made it down to Costa Rica there was a tropical cyclone sliding down the Pacific Coast. They have fewer corrupt politicians and senseless killings down there, so the evening news bulletin treated the weather situation to the in-depth treatment.

The Caribbean side has a number of advantages over the more visited Pacific littoral, light-coloured sand and fewer surfers and sex tourists among them. The bus from San José was packed with mochileros and I envisaged having to dash from the stop in Cahuita to secure the cabina I was after, but in the end only me and one other passenger got down in Cahuita — so the others must have been Panama-bound. (The border is only another 30 minutes further down the road.)

The population of Cahuita features a dominant Jamaican heritage and an English-based patois is spoken there as well as Spanish. The first setllers were turtle hunters from Nicaragua and Bocas del Toro who appeared seasonally and lived in provisional camps. The Smith family then created a more permanent fishing camp in 1828 at 'Punta Cahuita' and the site of the present township (which I'd estimate at around half the size of the one on Caye Caulker) was granted in perpetuity to the locals after they assisted President Alfredo González Flores when his ship was wrecked en-route to Sixaola. The town's main street is named after the grateful leader who served Costa Rica from 1913-17.

There are two restaurants in this tiny seaside spot which I would recommend to any visitor to Central America....which I guess is one more than I can think of in Antigua. The first of these is a place called Cha Cha Cha run by a talented Haitian-Canadian chef resident in Cahuita for fifteen years. The other is a more traditional Caribbean eatery run by one of those well-entrenched and well-respected viejitas: Miss Edith's. She specialises in Jamaican dishes, such as jerk chicken and fish.

The other significant reason for bothering to come is the Parque Nacional lying just to the south of the town and incorporating a beautiful beach lined by almendrales. There are pathways through the forest behind the sands , but these end rather abruptly thanks to overspill from the Rio Perezoso during the wet season. As you can see from the pics, the White-Faced Capuchins are far from shy. Entry is free, though donations are encouraged.

The distance isn't actually all that daunting for anyone based in Guatemala. You can catch the early afternoon Ticabus from the terminal on the Calzada Aguilar Batres and be in San Salvabore some five hours later. There's a cheap and comfortable hotel attached to the Ticabus stop in the smart suburb of San Benito in that city, but you could be brave and stay awake, because the journey continues at 4am the next morning arriving around 8pm in San José.

The following day you can catch a ride to Cahuita from the Gran Terminal del Caribe, which will take around three and a half hours and involves a bathroom break in Puerto Limón.

Overall the isthmus south of Guatemala conforms to my expecations of being fundamentally less fascinating than the lands to the north which were more deeply penetrated by ancient Mesoamerican culture. That said, Costa Rica is interestingly different to Guatemala. For example, the vegetation on the hills outside the capital more resembles a botanical garden turned cancerous than the pine-clad hills separating Guatemala City and Antigua.

San José, Costa Rica

The unusally — for CA at least — distended belly of Costa Rica's almost comfortable middle class is very apparent in this pleasant capital city. At its upper end, San José is sophisticated without being especially cosmopolitan, which is in a sense, the opposite of the situation here in Antigua.

'Chepe' is in fact roughly Oaxaca-sized and can easily be explored on foot, unlike Guatemala City, where more pressing dangers than blisters take shape the moment one strays a KM or so in any given direction. And the main commercial artery — the Avenida Central — and the two blocks running parallel to it, seemed to bustle until several hours after dark, unlike Arzú's hailmary regeneration of the area around the Paseo de la Sexta in Guate, which tellingly features large plackards admonishing those who would seek to preemptively re-scummify the zone, and which still empties out rapidly every evening as citizens scuttle off at sundown, as if there were a snoozing vampire in every sótano.

The largest, most serious bookshop on the Avenida Central was stocked a full set of Bolaño novels, which predominated over lesser collections from the literary nobelity (e.g. Saramago, Gabo and Vargas Llosa), but alas not Paolo bloody-Coehlo.

This street is as good a place as any to indulge in some Tica-spotting. It struck me that there are three basic types on display:

1) The professionals: from basic presentable to seriously elegant — an appropriately dominant female type in a nation now led by one of their number
2) The lookers, from eye-catchingly fair to jaw-droppingly gorgeous
3) The eaters, from low centre of gravity to roly poly - possibly the largest group in terms of membership as well as urban footprint.

All seem to favour the kind of overtight denim legware that was even more fashionable up here in Guatemala in the 80s. All, but especially the type 2s, are likely to be seen wandering around town carrying a baby like a sack of potatoes. (I've never been a big fan of strollers in shopping centres, but this struck me as odd.)

San José does appear to have an unfortunate appeal for the Clete Purcell-type of tourist, and one couldn't help but notice the bars around town where the walls are covered with photos of bearded men in loud shirts holding large fish. Many are probably after the big catch up here on the high plain too, but should any of the Tica-types categorised above appear unusually available in that sense, they are a) most likely not Costa Rican and b) even more likely not female.

I once heard some young American tourists reviewing Antigua's market as they exited it as "a maze full of Walmart shit". Well, San José's version is an appropriately more urbane environment, with comparatively spacious walkways leading to a central core of cleanish-looking eateries known locally as sodas, with an interesting emphasis on medicinal herbs in some of the outer lanes. Tipico-wise, there's nothing much worth acquiring here.

And the truth is, once you've taken in the Teatro Nacional and a couple of the museums, what's left isn't really that much more interesting than Tapachula, and its central civic life around the Parque Central is considerably seedier. Cross several of the even-numbered avenidas to the south of it, and the pavements start to crumble and the clapboard properties which abound here look a lot more Belize City than Guatemala City.

It's just as pricey as Guate. It's not ridiculously expensive but you often sense that you're not quite getting your money's worth, and that with this kind of underlying backwater ambience, things really ought to be considerably cheaper. (This problem is not as pronounced as it is in say Scotland however.)

As for the grub, more on that later...