Manuel Antonio

This last weekend, Amanda and I took a 4 hour bus ride to the Pacific Coast, to a national Park called Manuel Antonio. The park is famous for its beaches, monkeys, and iguanas. We saw all three, plus some others - two sloths, a deer, raccoons, and a large rodent we never identified. I went a little crazy on the photos, so I'm just posting the best of the bunch. This is a photo of the north end of the main beach in the park, which is where Amanda and I went swimming. On the south end were tons of high schoolers playing volleyball and honeymooning couples making out. Either way, it was more crowded than we were interested in. The water was a nice temperature - cool in comparison to the outside air, but not so cold it gave me the shivers.

The park is, of course, famous for the animals. Here are two examples; I can't tell you how many monkeys and iguanas we saw, not to mention the two sloths, a red and blue crab, hermit crabs, a crazy lizard that looked prehistoric. . . it was pretty great on the animal sightings side of things.

Manuel Antonio is also a really famous tourist area. It was nice to have a break from speaking Spanish, especially since Amanda doesn't speak any, and so I had to translate for her during the weekend as well. Because it is a tourist area, there are tons of hotels. We stayed at The Falls Resort, which was pretty sweet. One of the most exciting things (for me, anyway), was the running hot water (as noted in my last entry). But the hotel was really nice, with cotton sheets, a/c . . . the whole nine yards. Plus, the center of the resort was an  overgrown jungle garden, with birds, lizards, butterflies, R.O.U.S.'s, and monkeys. On our last day there, we saw at least 5 monkeys, two of which were mama monkeys with babies clinging to their backs. Pretty much adorable and a fantastic way to close out our stay. The photo to the left is the view into the garden from our room. Pretty hard to tell its a hotel, yeah? The other great thing about being in a tourist area was the wide variety of restaurants we had to choose from. We decided to eat at El Avion on Saturday night, which is a restaurant built around a plane from the Iran/Contra Affair. Remember that plane that got shot down over Nicaragua? There was a second one ready to go in Costa Rica, but after the US government declared it had nothing to do with the first, the second got left at the San Jose International Airport, since the US gov't couldn't exactly claim it. Several years ago, a business man bought the plane for $3,000 and shipped it to Manuel Antonio. Then he hauled it up the main road, and parked and reassembled it on the edge of a cliff.  The result is pretty spectacular. The plane houses the bar, and underneath the wings there is a large balcony, which is where we ate. This photo is the view from out table out over jungle and the Pacific. Pretty sweet, no? It was pretty great, and the food was really good. It was the only time the whole trip we didn't eat casados, which are a traditional Costa Rican dish. They consist of rice, beans, and some type of meat or chicken, plus veggies or a small salad. I love casados; they're my preferred meal here. Instead, I had pasta with veggies which satisfied the part of me that had been craving vegetables, and Amanda had a hamburger, which satisfied her craving for American food.

While in the Park, we also did a hike around what I guess could be called headlands, though they're covered in rainforest. The trail is called the Cathedral Trail, and I have no idea why. But it was a lovely, very short, very hot hike. There are a variety of lookout points along the way, some of which overlook the public beach, the ocean, and the park's beaches. While on the trail, we saw our second unidentified ROUS, as well as what we think was a legless lizard, and several iguanas. This is the view from a lookout:

So all in all, it was a pretty fantastic trip. I had a great time, and I think Amanda did as well. We did a lot of hiking, but also plenty of lazing around on the beach, which was rest time well deserved.

This last photo is of me and Amanda at the Park Entrance. Amanda has gone back to the States, but it was super great to have her here for a bit, and to have a traveling companion!