Bus ride from hell to the wildlife paradise

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We dragged ourselves out of bed to catch the 7am bus to Quepos... we weren't the only ones with the same idea and so all of the seats were full and we ended up standing up for the first two hours while the bus crawled through the narrow twisting roads out to the pacific side of Costa Rica. Once we reached Dominical, a few people unloaded and we scored some seats. Which was a good thing, since next three hours were not the most pleasant - the bus was absolutely cooking as it crawled along the dirt road, dodging pot-holes and halting to pick people up every 100 metres or so. At one point it drove through a river where the bridge was being repaired. Finally we reached Quepos and Trish was not feeling too good. It was a memorable journey, and probably about what you would expect for the $2 each.

We splashed out and caught a taxi into Manuel Antonnio, which is a popular little beach town at the end of the road near the national park of the same name. After staying the shit-hole in San Isidro and the hellish bus ride, we thought we would splurge on a little luxury and got a room at the Hotel Villabosque for $50 a night - it was the swankiest place so far, it even had a pool and air-con.

To unwind, we went for a swim on the beautiful beach - the Pacific was as warm as the Caribbean, for some reason I thought it would be colder. Despite a lot of clouds the sunset was amazing.

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