On day 5 of the retreat, we had our last yoga class, then after breakfast it was time to say goodbye to Chakra. As I walked down the path from the platform to the road, my stomach was all knotted. I could have stayed there a bit longer, it felt like I was being pulled from the place too soon, I wasn’t quite ready to go back to civilization yet and wanted more of the serene, carefree and supportive energy that the space and the people in it provided.
We hiked down the 5km of road, back to the village.
As part of their conservation project in the area, Run Like a Girl also provides community service. This time we participated in re-painting a small building affiliated to the school. It may sound weird but I actually loved doing that. It got me thinking about looking up retreats that offer community project involvement as well as outdoor activities. I’m sure those are out there.
We then got back on the bus, ready to head to the beach! We drove to Playa Dominical, a very small beach town on the west coast of Costa Rica, right on the mouth of Rio Baru and the Pacific ocean. This was a great way to ease back into a slightly more populated area, after spending 5 days in a secluded lodge. Far from being a tourist hub, it was a charming little one-street town. Shop sand restaurants lined the main unpaved road, while craft and souvenir vendors spread along the ocean front, in the shade of the palm trees.
After settling into our hotel rooms, we had a tasty lunch at Phat Noodle, a Thai restaurant just at the entrance of town. Then the afternoon was free so Brice and I went for a stroll on the beach. We walked some distance south until we reached a rocky area, populated by hundreds of tiny little crabs.
The sky was pretty cloudy at the point and we got caught in a legit downpour as we walked back.
For dinner we all went to Tortilla Flats, a restaurant on the beach. The food was underwhelming at best – I thought, but the cocktails were delicious, probably the best pina colada I’d had in a long time. We were sitting near Heather and Melissa, the two sisters from Utah, and after diner, while most of the group had already gone back to their room, the four of us decided to keep the party going and went on the search for a place to potentially do some dancing.
Well, there wasn’t much going on in Playa Dominical at 10pm on a Wednesday (at least I think it was Wednesday, my sense of date and time was pretty fuzzy at that point), but after walking down the main street back towards the town entrance, we ended up in what seemed to be THE establishment in town that locals went to. As far as locals, there were about 5-6 men siting at the bar, and our slightly inebriated entrance didn’t go un-noticed. Aside from that, the rest of the place was empty, so we sat down in a booth further past the bar, but soon relocated to the top of the small wooden stage behind us and proceeded to start dancing. Not sure if the other patrons found us funny or annoying, but soon after, the music stopped. Because we were on a wooden stage, we found ourselves stomping, and soon we were singing “we will rock you” to our own beat (cause, obviously)…We must have been more entertaining than annoying because a couple of minutes later the bartender put that very song on. More dancing and drinking (and spilling) ensued and one of the men stood of his bar stool and busted out some pretty serious dance moves with Melissa. Meanwhile, our waiter from dinner, Moses, who we had nicknamed Costa-Rican-Lebron-James, made an appearance – apparently Heather had made quite the impression on him, not enough to remember her name correctly as he kept calling her Amber, but enough that he seemed pretty pleased to see her at his local hang-out.
After a while we got tired of dancing. It was hot and muggy and we were all pretty sweaty so the next obvious move at that point was to go jump into the ocean, which we did. With all that, we were in bed at a whooping 12am – might as well call it an all-nighter since our regular bedtime until then had been closer to 8:00pm.
For day two at the beach, Hailey and Eduardo took us to another beach area in the nearby national park of Marino Ballena, just outside the town of Uvita, about 20 minute drive south of Playa Dominical. The park is known for being one of the best area in Costa Rica (and maybe even in the world) to spot humpback whales, especially in the fall when they congregate there to mate. Mother Nature works in mysterious ways as the 13km long beach presents a very large rock and sand formation jutting out into the ocean, and which, viewed from the sky, looks surprisingly similar to a whale’s tail. This is the result of conflicting currents which deposit sand over the rocky formations, creating this unusual, yet oddly-appropriate shape that can be fully seen at low-tide.
Our guides had planned a couple of activities for us while on the beach. Eduardo set up a couple of slack lines between palm trees. While half of the group was testing out their core strength and balancing skills, the other half gathered a few hundred feet away at the mouth of a small river for some stand-up paddle-boarding. We paddled up the narrow estuary, lined by thick mangrove trees. Although very different from our kayaking experience in Mexico, I couldn’t help but be reminded of it, floating once again on calm waters surrounded by this exotic vegetation.
After all the beach fun, we walked back into the small town for lunch, then headed back to Playa Dominical for another free afternoon.
Once we were done browsing the souvenir stands by the ocean, Brice and I, along with Melissa and Heather headed to the hotel pool. At first the water was looking somewhat questionable. A hotel employee was in fact in the process of cleaning it. When asked if the water was safe to swim in, to which he replied yes, so we went in for a while. It was our last night as a group as some people were flying off the next day. Since there was a 2-hour drive to get back to San Jose, some of the ladies had to leave really early the next morning – as in 3am, in the case of Heather and Melissa. Because of that we briefly entertained the idea of repeating the partying from the night before and not go to bed at all (for them anyways) but at 10pm, as we were paying our dinner bill, it became pretty evident that it wasn’t gonna happen. We were all fading already and besides, you can’t force these things, they had to happen organically.
So we walked back to our rooms and said goodbye. I was sad to see these two go as we had definitely bonded over the course of the retreat, not so much over what we had in common, as our background were pretty different (two sisters from a Mormon background, one of whom had never been outside of the United States until now, and a French couple relocated from Paris to Anglo-Canada) but rather, over our enjoyment at finding out about each other’s story and where we came from. Plus they had wicked-fun personalities and incredibly generous, embracing demeanours. In the beginning I was even surprised that little old me would make any sort of impression on these two (not surprised about Brice though, who always knows how to make a strong first impression :P). In any case, somehow by the end of it we were friends and hoping for opportunities to hang out again before too long – turns out Utah has been on my list of places to explore so we might try to put it in the cards for 2017.
Along with a smaller group, we had opted to stay an extra day in Costa Rica before we flew off to our next destination. On our last morning in Playa Dominical, we got up early and went for a sunrise walk on the beach.
After breakfast, Hailey suggested we go hike the Nauyaca Waterfalls trail. The trail is about 4km one way, if you start from the parking lot. We took a taxi there and instead of having him drive us down the dirt road to the parking lot, we got off at the intersection and started from the main road, adding another 2km to our hike. The trail was pretty easy, but again because of the recent rain, it was really muddy. There were two impressive waterfalls at the end, the first one 45 meters high and free-falling, and the other one twenty meters high with a tiered fall, forming a pool at the bottom.
You’d think after our 11-waterfalls hike on day 2 of the retreat we would be a bit jaded, but these two were definitely a impressive sight and worth the hike.
On the way back we stopped at a small restaurant for a bathroom break, and discovered just behind it a tree full of capucine monkeys and toucans. In true RLAG Retreat fashion, we then had to hike back up the steep 2km dirt road from the parking lot to the main road, where we had asked our taxi driver to come get us at 1pm. Like Jackie said, it’s good to finish a hike with a good challenging bit that makes you sweat. And sweating we did, it was hot and muggy and a great way to end this week of challenging adventures.
We drove back to the village and had a delicious lunch at Coco Mongo, a vegetarian café near the entrance of town. The bus came to pick us up a little after 5pm, so we got a last glimpse at the Costa Rican sunset before saying good bye to Dominical.
Back in San Jose, we stayed at the Mango Hotel near the airport. The room was nothing special, but at $90 a night, with breakfast and airport shuttle included, it was probably one of the cheapest option in the airport area. The next day, we said goodbye to Costa Rica, and flew off to our next adventure: the Caraterra Austral and Patagonia.
