Manuel Antonio National Park, never a dull moment

---

Said goodbye to Carolyn this morning and boarded a bus for Quepos. Arrived about 2 hours later, checked into the hostel, a very nice one I may add! Walked around town a bit, went to the super market where I scored a proper sized jar of peanut butter (weird things that appease you while backpacking). Spent the rest of the day lounging and reading in my room.

The following morning I went to Manuel Antonio National Park, within minutes I spotted my first sloth! I walked down to a secluded white sand beach where I was going to take a rest until I saw the huge iguanas already resting on the beach, so I decided to take off. The rain forest was nice, I eventually made it down to the popular beach and took up residence in a sunny spot. After maybe 10 minutes I was surprised when a raccoon walked up to my bag and tried to go through it??! I shooed it away successfully, only to watch it continue down the beach doing the same thing to everyone’s bags. It came back a few times over the next hour, but I was mildly more prepared for it. After a while I packed my belongings and headed for a picnic table to re-pack and mosey on back to the hostel. While at the picnic table, I was looking up in the trees-looking for monkeys and such-well in the meantime the raccoon followed me and jumped onto the picnic table and as I scrambled to grab my bag and belongings-it grabbed the other half of my unzipped bag and was tugging it! I didn’t want to hit the raccoon, for fear of getting bitten, and then of course contracting raccoon aids, so I just pulled back. The raccoon then reaches in my bag and steals my granola!! Satisfied it lets go and jumps off the table and runs to the forest to tear open the bag and consume my tasty granola…bastard!! So, granola-less, I packed my stuff and left the park.

---