Tag Archives: Montezuma

My first day in Montezuma

So it’s actually my second day in Montezuma, but it’s my first full day so I made the most of it. I picked up a sandwich first thing in the morning and I hiked up to the waterfalls and stayed for hours. It’s really hot today so I took 5 bottles of stuff to drink (2 water, 2 gatorade and 1 coke).

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The water level was low in the river. Not too low just lower than the last two times I was just (at the beginning and ends of rainy season). Many of the rocks in the above photo would be covered with water, causing it to be (almost) like rapids. It made for an easy walk. It’s not hard to navigate the rocks or even step in the water, but it the water isn’t clear it’s hard to tell if it’s 6 inches deep or 6 feet deep.

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I jumped around into the pond at the bottom of the falls; it’s hard to see the big rock on the left (since I didn’t get it in the photo) that I was jumping off of but I’d have landed in between those swimmers (but I waited until they were gone). I tried to climb up into the falls themselves but the rocks were too slippery today, after three falls I took the hint and gave up.

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Then I went up to the upper falls, if look at the above photo you can see the where the water runs over the far edge, that’s the top of the waterfall from the previous photo.There were multiple groups of people up there and everyone was pretty social today, it was pretty fun up there. Lots of people jumping, with everyone encouraging everyone to jump. I actually jumped from the spot where I took the above photo (I need a better one to show how high of a fall it was).

Obviously, I had a hike back down so I post more later (with some more photos)…

FYI, I ended up drinking 6 bottles of fluids, I stopped at the butterfly gardens hotel (at the top of the hill on the way back) and picked up another drink. They had cold sodas and my last was pretty warm by then, but I still managed to finish the warm gatorade before I made it home.

Montezuma Fire Dancing

So I always love when I get to see some fire dancing in Montezuma. My first night was no disappointment.

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All the photos should be clickable for larger versions. I’ll try and post some video later.

Muto by Blu

This is one of the shorts that I saw at the Montezuma International Film Festival. A very cool (stop animation) wall painted animation done on the walls of buildings on the streets of Buenos Aires.


Direct link to Muto at Vimeo. If you like it you can download the full Muto movie as a 768×576 avi file.

More info at Blu’s blog.

I was waiting for the bus in Montezuma.

It was kinda gloomy out and I didn’t want to hike far and get trapped in the rain. I saw a few people gathering for the bus so I asked what time the bus was, I was told 11:30 so I grabbed my stuff from the hotel and went back to the bus stop.


I’m not sure why this looks pixelated, it’s actually way better in High Quality.

A few people showed up at 11:30 but no bus. A few more show up at Noon but no bus. At 12:10 the bus showed up and lots of people showed up by 12:30 (which was the correct time). Turns out this is the one time of day the bus is generally on-time since they stop to get lunch when they arrive here. Why all those others thought it was 11:30 and 12:00, I have no idea, they said those times with no hesitation. I really wish “I don’t know” was part of the Costa Rican vocabulary.

And now that it’s all uploaded, I realize the ocean looks kinda washed out. But I swear it’s right there…

(FYI, I am not in Costa Rica)

Meals I’ve had in Costa Rica

Just some photos of some of my meals from the lower Nicoya Peninsula. I thought they looked and/or tasted nice.

Sesame Chicken
Sesame Chicken (Chicken dipped in Lime and Honey and rolled in sesame). La Narango resurant in Montezuma, Costa Rica. $7.50-ish

Big breakfast
Big breakfast from the Soda Monte Sol in Montezuma, Costa Rica (2200 colones, just under $4). There is cheese in them Scrambled eggs! Server very fast!

Camaron y arroz
Shrimp and Rice (CamarĂ³n y arroz) from a place in Cobano, Costa Rica (right next to the “big” grocery store). It was delicious, had lots of shrimp and it was cheap ($5 if I recall correctly).

Cobano, Costa Rica

So Cobano is a nearby town of Montezuma it’s about 7 km away. It’s kind of the centralized place for the bus transfers, a few more restaurants, way faster Internet and some larger stores. Also it’s the nearest bank, ATM, pharmacy, gas station, hardware store, appliances, bicycles, etc. Even with all that, it’s pretty small. I was waiting for the bus the other day and shot this time lapse footage of the main intersection.

Here’s the direct link to the above video.

I also shot this photo of the sky as the sun was setting. I thought the colors were great!

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I wish I had a few more photos from around town…

Taking the Bus in Costa Rica

So riding the bus in Costa Rica is cheap and it’ll take you anywhere. The problem is figuring out when the bus is going to be running.

In the bigger cities this doesn’t appear to be a problem, if you miss a bus another one will be by soon and if it’s not the right bus it’s still heading in the correct direction, just hop on. In the more remote areas (such as Montezuma) they probably don’t come more than every two hours so if you miss the bus it’s a pain.

The people closest to the bus stop seem to have the most reliable information. Restaurants and internet cafes have it written down, but they wrote it down ages ago. My trickiest problem is asking “when is the next bus?” and they tell me “it’s in 20 minutes” but that’s too soon for me so I try to find out about the bus after that and it’s no good; I have to come back in 25 minutes and ask again to get the info for the bus after that :)

The appears to be no schedule posted, even at the bus station in Cobano (a central town in the lower Nicoya Peninsula). I did notice the bus that goes from Montezuma to Cabuya to the National Reserve does have a schedule taped to the window (4 trips a day) with pricing and everything; as an added bonus, it generally seemed to be leaving Montezuma at the correct time! More info below.

Pricing is cheap though. In San Jose I took a bus for about 150 colones (28 cents) but honestly I don’t know far that would have taken me, it was in front of me heading the right way and it kept going once I got off. In Montezuma, it’s 300 colones (55 cents) to go to Cobano which is 7 km. away (a very hilly/dusty walk).

You can get a direct bus all the way to San Jose from Montezuma, but you might not get a seat and there isn’t any A/C but I think you can do it for about $8-ish (maybe $10 including the ferry ride). CORRECTION: The direct bus does have air conditioning; if the directo bus in Montezuma does not have A/C, when you switch onto the directo in Cobano that one has A/C (and little controllable vents like on an airplane), I’ve taken it three different times now and it is an excellent value (it seems like it will stop at the SJO Airport [you must ask/tell them!] or San Jose at the Coca Cola bus terminal (updated March 2012; I think I paid just under $14 and that included the ferry ride). Continue reading

Me Jumping in at the Montezuma Waterfalls

Just me getting into the water and climbing the big rock in the background and jumping into the water. Nothing ultra-exciting but should give an idea of the pool and jumping area…

I’m not the first person you see. I’m the guy who walks in front of the camera a few seconds into the video (and gets in). There is a larger version of the video if you go to the direct link (below). It’s not the best quality, it must have lost something in the encoding to YouTube :(


Here’s the direct link to the video of me.