Quepos Costa Rica/Manuel Antonio National Park

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After 2.5 hours in the car driven by Corlos (Phone#[phone]) who was our private driver, we arrived in downtown Quepos. Sam's shop was right in town on the main street, next to Best Western Hotel. We called Sam earlier, and he met us at his store. Sam drives a moped scooter. He led the way for Corlos, our driver to the Condo/house (Villa Casaloma). It was already late, and we unpacked our suitcases. The temperature was above 80F, and it was hot and humid.

The villa was very spacious and clean. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms with one inside the master bedroom, a living room with TV, and a kitchen. I would like to make some comments about the place. I looked up the place on www.tripadvisor.com. It asked for $180/night with a minimum of two nights. I had to sent $150 deposit via "MoneyGram". You can also wire the money, but it is more expensive. I was kind of skeptical initially. The review on the Tripadvisor was assuring. The transaction went well. After Sam checked us in, we were sweating and decided to take shower. The shower did not have hot water. Sam was responsive and quickly came over. Apparently one of the circuit breakers was in the off position. Since the hot water came from the tankless system, there was not a lot of hot water coming out of the shower. But it was manageable, and everyone had a hot shower. The shower in the master bedroom did not have any hot water. We could not make it spit a drop of hot water. All four of us used the smaller bathroom for shower.

The villa has air-conditioning in both bedrooms and the living room. The living room air did not work, and Sam wouldn't say why. The recess lighting in the villa did not work either. The TV has English program, which was great. The wireless internet worked well. As expected, there were bugs, especially ants, everywhere. With tropical climate, it was expected to have a lot of bugs. Sam supplied insecticides. I still don't quite understand why they don't suppy you with shampoo. We did have to buy shampoo ourselves.

The location was convenient. It is 5 min taxi to the Manuel Antonio national park, and 5 min taxi to the Quepos downtown for about $5-6. There is a grocery store nearby, about 5 min walking distance. It is tailored to the American, and things there were Expensive, double or triple what you would pay here in the states.

What we did there:
Manuel National Park: It is a national park with a beautiful beach (Playa Manuel Antonio 3rd beach). You have to visit the beach there. The water was clean, and warm. There were monkey around stealing people's food. There were Iguana sun bathing there. The park is not very big. You are going to see some representative animals there, such as sloth, white faced capuchin monkeys, Toucan, frogs, lizards, Iguana. Bring a binoculars with you. You may hire a tour guide for $20/person for a 2 hour tour. I don't think you need one. The guides were very good spotting animals.

There were showers and water fountains close to the beach.

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