Montezuma

This past weekend, I went to Montezuma with 3 other students from the program. Many students went their separate ways this weekend in smaller groups. Traveling constantly with a large group can be draining so we decided to make it small and intimate. Montezuma is a beach town on the pacific coast off Costa Rica on the Nicoya Peninsula. We took a bus, a ferry, and then another bus to get there. We stayed at La Aurora Hostel, which was very nice. Two of my girl friends and I got a private room to ourselves with three beds, a mini fridge, and a private bathroom. That's about as good as its going to get when visiting hostels. The owner was really nice and was willing to help us out a lot. The hostel was about a minute walk from the beach, which was great. Surprisingly, the beach was extremely dirty. There was so much trash along the border of the sand from the forests, but the water was clear. This was very upsetting because we later found out that all the trash wash floating down the rivers from the interior of the continent. Although Costa Rica is the poster child for sustainable development, it still has a long way to go with improving its waste management. In the ocean, the waves were sooooo strong! We could hardly stay in without being knocked over, but when we walked down about 30 minutes along the coast we found a calmer part of the water and swam. When we were walking we spotted about 10 monkeys. They were adorable, but fierce. We got really close to them as well! Don't worry we acted sustainably and didn't feed or touch them, of course! On Saturday, I went snorkeling on Tortuga Island. The island was really cool, but there was some pollution there as well. I still saw so many fish and it was a great time! Our guide took us on a long boat tour, let us snorkel for about 2 hours, and prepared us lunch. We chilled along the beach of the island for a few hours before returning to Montezuma. It was a beautiful weekend, but the pollution surprised us all. The nightlife in Montezuma is a little slow. We were really tired so we ended up just talking with each other at night and relaxing. Also, a guy we met in Monte Verde joined us at our hostel! It was great.