Playas del Coco to Manuel Antonio

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Costa Rica 2013: Day 11: Playas del Coco to Manuel Antonio:

We were ready to leave our room at Laura's House by 6am, but unfortunately the lady who had been in the cafe the morning before wasn't there, so no coffee. We made our way to the bus stop in Playas del Coco to catch the 6:30am bus to Liberia and arrived with time to spare. The "bus stop" is just a place on the side of the road where the Pulmiton busses stop. When we arrived in Liberia, it was just past 7:30am, so we walked the block or so to the bus station for Puntarensas, and lo and behold, the 7:30 bus to Puntarenas was just leaving, so we hopped on, already an hour ahead of schedule, as I'd planned on catching the 8:30 bus. Arriving in Puntarenas around 11am, we discovered that the bus to Quepos was just getting ready to leave, and the driver gave us 2 minutes to use the restroom. Now we were almost 2 hours ahead of schedule, but we hadn't eaten anything yet except for a bag of chips I had leftover. When we arrived in Quepos around 2pm, believe it or not, our final bus from Quepos to Manuel Antonio was just getting ready to leave too. We decided since we were so much ahead of schedule and still hadn't eaten, that we'd wait for a later bus and have lunch in Quepos. We ended up eating lunch at Soda Maricela in the Quepos bus terminal. Manoli had a casado with chicken and I had a cheeseburger. Manoli enjoyed her plate and my cheeseburger was quite good too. The distance to Manuel Antonio was only 4 kilometers, so our final leg of the trip was quite short, but very scenic. As soon as we pulled out of Quepos, we started climbing a winding, mostly uphill road, with numerous hotels and restaurants lining both sides of the road. We'd asked the bus driver to let us off at Hostel Vista Serena, so when we noticed him pass it, we kind of wondered, but apparently he wasn't going to stop until the next actual bus stop afterwards.

We got off the bus, grabbed our bags from the luggage compartment and headed back up the road to our new hostel. When I'd made the reservations, I'd opted for a separate buiding, a two-story, double duplex, where we could have almost a private apartment. What I hadn't realized is that the building, called Loma Linda, was not on the grounds of the hostel, but almost a kilometer further down the road. Oh well, it would put us closer to Manuel Antonio Park, and would be even more private than I'd expected. The son of the owners gave us a ride there in his pickup truck, then showed us the place we'd be staying the next three nights. We have a private bedroom with a double bed and bunkbeds, and a shared living room, bathroom, and kitchen. The shared bathroom would normally be a bit of a bummer, but we are the only ones in the building... for now. This place is truly like an apartment, with coffee maker, refrigerator, microwave, all the plates and utensils we'd need, and somewhat stocked. We have two loaves of bread for the toaster, butter and several types of jams in the refrigerator, and coffee, milk, and sugar. The only down side, besides the shared bathroom (if another couple shows), is the lack of air conditioning, but we do have oscillating fans in our bedroom and the living room, plus a nice porch with tables, chairs, and a large hammock, and Wifi that works.

After settling in a bit, we decided to walk further down the road to the public beach and the park. The walk was quite interesting, with all the types of hotels, restaurants, and souvenir shops. As a bonus, we saw a howler monkey swinging through the trees right beside the road. The owners told us that most mornings, there should be one or more monkeys in the trees in front of our apartment, and warned us not to stand beneath the coconut palms as the monkeys tend to drop coconuts on unsuspecting tourist! By the time we reached the entrance to the park, we realized we'd been walking pretty much downhill all the way and weren't looking forward to walking back up. Instead, we caught one of the busses that run every 20 or 30 minutes (for 260 colones or 50 cents), back to our room. By this time it was almost 5pm, so we walked up the other way to get some groceries in the main supermarket, check on trading books at the hostel, and let Conrad (the owner's son) know we didn't have a coffee. Conrad gave us a bag of coffee to use and Manoli traded one book, then we headed back, stopping at the supermarket. We bought Coke, eggs, and assorted snacks. Unfortunately, while we were in the supermarket it had started to pour. We did have our little umbrella, but by the time we got back to the room we'd gotten pretty wet. It was after 6pm by this time, so we started thinking of dinner. The little cafe bistro next door had great looking stuff for lunch, but were only serving dinner and that menu look a bit fancy and expensive. Instead, Manoli sent me across the street to the Aqua Azul Cafe & Restaurant and told me to surprise her. I ended up ordering a BBQ chicken sandwich for her and a shrimp salad for me sort of a reversal of our normal meals. Manoli said the sandwich was very good, eating only half of it, so I guess I get half tomorrow since we have a refrigerator and a microwave. My shrimp salad was also very good, but besides lettuce and shrimp, it only had a few croutons and some fried plantain chips. The sauce was very good, but I would have enjoyed some tomato and/or onion with it. After dinner, we watched a movie on NetFlix, then turned in.

Tomorrow we plan on heading to Manuela Antonio National Park for the day, looking forward to seeing lots of monkeys and maybe a sloth or two. Until then, good night from Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica.

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Photos

Souvenir Shops
Souvenir shops near Manuel Antonio public beach