To find real charm along this shore, you must travel farther south along the paved highway that heads for the Panamanian border at Sixaola. As is the case all along the Caribbean shores, from Belize to Panama, many inhabitants are descendants of ex-slaves from the island of Jamaica. In Costa Rica, their ancestors came as construction workers on the railroad from Limon to San Jose in the late 1800s. Isolated from the European culture of the Meseta Central partly because of the difficulty in traveling be?tween the areas, and partly because of malaria and yellow fever quarantines?the coastal black people developed a unique Afro?Carribe culture, a combination of British Jamaica, Spanish Costa Rica and deepest Africa. Because English is the area's first lan?guage (spoken with a delightful British-Jamaican lilt), this area is favored by tourists and visitors who don't want to bother learning another language during their stay.

From San Jose, three-and-a-half hours of scenic driving brings you to the village of Cahuita. (It's about four hours by bus.) The village has a picture-book quality in its tropical Afro-Caribbean setting. Many houses stand on stilts to discourage insects, some buildings are painted bright colors similar to the style in Jamaica. Women and girls carry bundles on their heads with grace and enviable posture. The main road follows the shore, past black sand beaches and coral reefs to the north, and past more coral and beaches of yellow sand to the south. Along the yellow sand beach is Cahuita National Park, a 13-kilometer stretch of jungle complete with howler monkeys (which the Costa Ricans cacongos), feisty parrots and wildlife of all description. A foot trail parallels the beach through a thick tangle of tropical trees, vines and orchids. Butterflies, huge land crabs and iguanas keep you com?pany on the hike. A trip to Costa Rica isn't complete until you have walked this trail.
Several North Americans live here year round, some operating successful businesses. Others regularly arrive in November and head home by April. I had the good fortune to meet a young California couple who invited me to visit their winter quarters in Cahuita. They lived in a picturesque, thatch-roofed cabin perched next to a coral reef and shaded by graceful coconut trees. Their house was very rustic and the furniture minimal, but they ob?viously enjoyed their winter home immensely. The surf washed at their front door, spilling into a small depression of smooth black rocks where children played as if in their own private swimming pool.
The Limon coast is particularly attractive for the younger set. A special emphasis is placed on youthful activities, with reggae music thumping loudly from tropical bars, with surfboards, snorkel gear and brief swimsuits the order of the day. People who love Cahuita or Puerto Viejo--Cahuita's sister village a few miles south?will tell you that the rest of Costa Rica is too tame for them; they prefer this movie-set tropical setting?romantic, picturesque and inexpensive. One bar in the very center of Cahuita features extraordinarily powerful loudspeakers on the front porch which blare Jamaican rock music day and night. The volume is such that it rattles windows a block away and peels the paint off of passing automobiles. I love to visit here, but for long-term living in the tropics, I would much prefer the Pacific coast.

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