Playa Santa Teresa, Cabo Blanco & Montezuma

After our small off-road trip to Santa Teresa, we found a nice hotel, Beach Break Hotel that was clean, cozy, quiet and close to the beach. There is basically only one road in Playa Santa Teresa. There are hotels, grocery stores, restaurants and surf shops on both sides of the road. The beach is several kilometers long and mainly sand. The surf is better here than in Tamarindo because a bit bigger waves and plenty of space. We went surfing one day and the second day we went to Cabo Blanco National Reserve and Park. The road to there was a small adventure again, with river crossings and steep and muddy up and downhills to drive. 

When we arrived the reserve area we saw two dears next to the road. There are two trails, one is around 2 km and the other around 10 km. The latter ends to a beach so it's around 5 km there and 5 km back. We were around 9 am at the reserve and had planned to do the longer hike through the jungle. When we got off the car we could hear some thunder further away and we were hoping it would pass us.
The first hour or so went well. We saw a lot of different plants, trees and nature but unfortunately not that many animals that we hope for, but we heard some monkeys roaring at a distance.

The weather was really humid and we were sweating like pigs when walking. After an hour or so, the sweating stopped but we got soaked from the rain. It started pouring and the thunder came closer. After a short while the trail turned into a mud path and at some points it looked more like a ditch. We were probably at half way to the beach when we decided to turn back because we were walking down on a really muddy and wet trail. It looked like it would be raining for a long time and we couldn't see or hear even the few animals we saw and heard before the rain. We had crossed few rivers on our way to the beach and on our way back they had risen a bit but not too much. We didn't leave the reserve without seeing animals, but we saw them on the parking lot and on the road. On the parking lot we saw a funny animal that we hadn't seen before. Later it turned out to be a coati. We drove just a few meters and we saw a flock of capuchin monkeys. We stopped and got out of the car to take some photos and to see how they were playing, running and jumping in trees.

The next day we packed our stuff again and drove to Montezuma. It was a bit weird to drive because the road to Montezuma was 98% asphalt and in good condition ;) Montezuma seemed at first glance to be a small and cozy town. It is colorful and actually really small. The reason for our visit was the Montezuma falls. We had a nice sunny day to climb there. It took some time to find the beginning of the trail (Aurora hotel receptionist said 50m walk, but it was around 500m). It is a relatively easy walk to the falls, but flip flops do NOT work. We had jogging and water shoes and both worked well. Barefoot is also an option, but be careful because the water is brown during rain season so you can't see what's under the surface. We got a bit lost at halfway when the first trail ended because we were supposed to cross the river where the other part of the trail starts. Even if we were there during rain season, the river wasn't deep and it was quite easy to cross without getting wet shoes. The waterfall was really nice and we took a swim in it and Markus climbed behind the waterfall and jumped trough it! We didn't climb to the top of the fall, but we met few people who climbed there. They told that the first fall is better but the upper ones have less tourists. Well, at most there were around 10 people at the same time so it's not really crowded during rain season :) 

 Montezuma Waterfalls

We walked around the town, which didn't take long. Some of the restaurants and cafes were closed (probably due to low-season), which was a pity. But we found an ice cream shop called Icedream with interesting-looking ice creams :D The purple one is dragon fruit sorbet (natural color) - it was quite delicious!

We browsed through some shops, but everything was expensive so we left empty-handed. 

Few words about our hotel. Oh my... We booked the hotel online on the night before. We couldn't find many hotels or hostels online, even though there would have been many accommodations on the spot. But we didn't know that. Anyhow, we stayed one night at Hotel Aurora and would not recommend it to anyone. Our first room smelled so badly to mold that it was difficult to breath in the room. We switched rooms. The second one didn't smell that bad, but the cushions smelled like poo, so we ditched those and made our own cushions out of our clothes and used our own silk sleeping liners (so handy, btw!). Edda got her sleeping liner (SeaToSummit 100% Silk Traveller with pillow insert) from her colleagues as a birthday present and it has been really good.

Montezuma was a nice place to stay for one night, at least during low-season. The town was colorful and somehow inviting. :)

Montezuma street view