The smell of jerk chicken pervades the salty air in the small Caribbean town of Cahuita. We watch the local Calypso band close out its afternoon set. Although the tunes are great, the smell is intoxicating and, as always, my hunger takes precedence. We head to a nearby restaurant to relieve ourselves. We order the chicken marinated in a thick Caribbean rub and drenched in a thick coconut salsa. The first bite is an out of body experience. Unfortunately the euphoria is short lived, as I am brought back to earth by an elderly American man blasting youtube chainsaw videos at the next table. Resisting the urge to launch his phone into the ocean, I politely asked the gentlemen to turn it down. Thankfully, he obliges and we continue to devour our chicken in peace.
We stayed at the Hakuna Matata hostel. This was our favourite hostel in Central America, with ample green space, mango trees and a swimming pool. The hostel was owned by a friendly Argentine called Mario. Mario and I hit it off immediately because he played some of my favourite Argentine rock bands like Soda Stereo and Babasonicos. Mario dropped us at the trailhead of the Cahuita National Park the next morning. He warned us not to leave our bags unattended as the monkeys were especially cheeky in this area. I don’t like monkeys. They remind me too much of humans, who are really just demented monkeys with surplus brain neurons.
We paid five US dollars to enter, which is significantly cheaper than other National Parks in Costa Rica. After an hour walking through the mangroves we hit the coast. Along this stretch of pristine Caribbean coastline we encountered so much wildlife, we could barely walk one hundred metres without spotting something. As a result, our morning hike ended up being a full day adventure.
When we returned Mario said our friends Liam and David had arrived. We met Liam and David in the Panamanian jungle, bonding over shit hostel food and cheap rum. I found Liam and David to be a very interesting travel couple. David was a happy go lucky American, with a gentle midwest disposition. By contrast, Liam reminded me of a younger Dylan Moran, with an incredibly dry sense of humour that was lost on most travellers. Being an Australian, I share this sense of humour and understand the subtle cultural nuances. Most travellers thought he was perpetually pissed off and depressed, which I found hilarious. That evening Liam and I hit the piss with some American spring breakers. We cracked open some cheap Jamaican rum and talked over each other about the meaning of life.
I awoke to Liam and David knocking on our window. Apparently the night before I had promised Liam and David I would teach them how to surf. Being ten years younger they did not seem at all afflicted by the previous night's beers and were ready to hit the waves. Unfortunately the surf was choppy with strong onshore winds. The board hire was also very expensive. Paying fifty dollars to ride white water while hungover did not seem appealing. Luckily, David suggested a brilliant alternative that involved throwing coconuts at each other in the surf. After two hours of aquatic coco bliss, we emerged from the surf tired and sunburnt. Liam, being Irish, had turned bright red. David said he looked like a lobster. So became the Irish Lobster, the butt of our jokes for the next two days.