Advertisement
The blogging spirit has left me, I'm sad to say! 😊 We wore ourselves out yesterday and while it was awesome, recovery time was necessary. Here's our day, just a bit delayed.
We got up in Quepos, had breakfast and caught the bus to Manuel Antonio National Park. It's $10 for foreigners (and like $3 for Costa Rican which I think is brilliant! A way to get locals to use the park (make it affordable) and have tourists take on some of the costs of conservation.) and you could follow a guide around if you wanted. Rachel and I opted to go it alone.
What followed was a three hour nature hike on the muggiest day we've spent here. Not complaining, just saying. In the photos where I'm near water, it's safe to assume I was in that water at some point.
We saw pequeno lizards and grande lizards, birds, funky insects...but the best thing we saw was monkeys!! Wandered into a whole little grouping of them. It absolutely made our day! We spent a long time taking photos and videos of them. Rachel says we probably have enough footage to do a little documentary, but since we
know nothing about monkeys, it would be a lot of: "Did you see that one?" "Where?" "Over there, jumped the tree." "Whoa, that's awesome." "I know." ^_~
At any rate, we finally tired of playing Jane Goodall and proceeded along our way. It really is an amazing park with beautiful beaches, but it is real "tourist destination" we've visited and therefore our first exposure to tourists en-masse...not a pretty sight. We tried to steer clear of people for the most part, and just enjoy. A funny little side-note: when you come out of the backside of the park there is about 30 ft of water to be crossed. Several enterprising men are waiting there with boats to take you across for the nominal fee of ₡2000 ($4). Another day, that might have struck me as funny or no-biggie, but right then - hot and tired - I was like, what the? I can walk across 30 stinkin' feet of water. So that's what we did...no need to mention the fact that I fell off of the rock at the deepest part & soaked myself to the waist...before I managed to take my sneakers off. sigh. Still, got across and
promptly spent ₡1000 ($2) on an tropical shaved ice for my troubles. sniff, sniff. I showed those guys, huh?
We wandered around the shop area, but everything was overpriced and people were pushy and it was hot and (somehow) we managed to get more sunburned after putting on sunblock and walking under trees. Huh? So, we caught the bus back to Quepos, and tried to buy groceries, but the shops closed early because it was Sunday. We ended up eating at a Mexican restaurant (Dos Locos) and then buying bread at the only open shop (who were super clever and also offered necessities) before heading back to the hostel. We showered and laid down "just for a minute" because we both had headaches & I think a touch of sunstroke. So, like three hours later we woke up and it was dark. Oops. Another day of vacation gone. 😉 It was all worth it because of the monkeys. So, please take a moment to enjoy the monkeys video...shot by yours truly.
Peace & Love,
Rae
Advertisement
Tot: 0.177s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 13; qc: 28; dbt: 0.1464s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
intouchworld
non-member comment
Manuel Antonio
For those planning a trip to Manuel Antonio Costa Rica, this might be a useful web page - http://itravel-costarica.com/manuel_antonio_national_park.php