Hi there,
When we were planning the trip to Costa Rica, we had doubts as to whether to stay in Cahuita or Puerto Viejo. We ruled out the second one because we had read that it was a party place and we thought it would be very noisy.
In Tulum, for example, even though we had stayed away from the party zone and resorts, at night the noise from the clubs was a nightmare.
As we always have a hard vacation rhythm because we get up early and we are walking all day, when we arrive at the hotel, we need to rest. Having narrowed this down, we decided to base ourselves in Cahuita.
After visiting the national park and Playa Negra, the next day we had planned to take the bus to go to Puerto Viejo. That day, it was raining all morning and at noon we were finally able to leave the hotel.
We went to Cocles Beach, which is the closest to the town. We reached the end, we put our things under a tree and a lifeguard immediately came to tell us not to enter the sea from that part because it was very dangerous because of the rocks and the current. So, we went to where the yellow flag was, which was the only part where we could swim.
The sea water was brown and with many bits of leaves, trunks, and almond trees. I had a full bathing suit, and everything itched.
In Puerto Viejo you can see how the locals arrive on their motorcycles and sit down to contemplate the sea. Also, the beach was full of young people and surfers.
We stayed there until sunset; then we walked to the Puerto Viejo bus stop, which was 30 minutes away. The first thing we saw is that there was more life and movement. In Cahuita there were few eating options and no street lighting. Also, there are only two markets and they have almost nothing. In Puerto Viejo there were fruit stalls everywhere.
The next day we caught the bus early and went back to Puerto Viejo. This time we stayed further on, a little before Manzanillo. The bus left us in the middle of the road, and we located ourselves with the GPS to look for an entrance to the beach. We turned onto a path that passed by a house and through fields full of cows.
We arrived at Playa Grande as the map marked and it was gorgeous. White sand beach and crystal-clear water where the view is lost. We stayed there for a while and sunbathed before starting the tour.
The idea was to walk back to Puerto Viejo along the beach. The first thing we found was Punta Uva, which is what the locals recommend the most. There the water is still crystal clear, but in the rest of the route the water is churning and brown.
We had to go out on the road a couple of times as the beach was closed, which was good since we bought another bottle of water and bananas. We also found a coconut that Diego opened by hitting it against a stone.
In the end, before reaching Cocles, we had to cross a large river with the backpack on our heads. We started the tour at 10am and arrived at the Puerto Viejo bus station at 6pm exhausted from walking.
For us it would have been better to have the hotel in Puerto Viejo since there is a greater offer of restaurants, supermarkets, fruit stalls and beaches. It only takes one day to visit Cahuita. There is not as much party atmosphere as we imagined so it would have been the best option. In addition, in Puerto Viejo you have buses very frequently that take you from one beach to another at an affordable price. What they recommend to tourists is to go by bicycle, but there is no bike lane, and it did not seem safe to me because of how the locals drove. For us the most beautiful thing was to do everything walking on the beach.
Here I leave the link in case you want to watch the video of our visit to Cahuita and Puerto Viejo: