Day 49, Quepos, Costa Rica

So getting to Quepos is one of the most memorable travelling legs ive had on this whole trip. We decided to splurge on a shuttle bus versus taking the local bus. If we took a local bus it could take up to 11 hours, the shuttle took about 5. We leave early in the morning only to find out we are the only ones on the shuttle! we have it all to ourselves, it was so relaxing. We heading to Paquera which is a coastal town on the nicoya peninsula (where tamararindo and santa theresa is) we then boarded a ferry which took about 1.5 hours which took us across the pacific to the mainland pacific coast of costa rica. From there we were greeted by another shuttle that was there to meet us, once again we were by ourselves. Our driver was so nice, he couldnt speak english but i managed to communicate with him. He asked if it was all right if we stopped at his house in puntas arenas, and we said sure. Once at his home he asked if his daughter could come with us for the ride to quepos. So it turned into a family event, his wife and 9 year old daughter Grella (greya) came along. Halfway down the coast the father asked us if we wanted to stop to take pictures of something that i couldnt understand and we said sure. He ended up pulling aside before a bridge and he walked us with his daughter across the bridge and told us to look down. FULL OF CROCODILES!!! probably at least 20 that i could see ranging from 5ft long to at least 15ft they were so huge , i managed to get some amazing pictures. We then walked across the rest of the bridge with grella and boarding our shuttle. She immedietly took a liking to us and sat in the back of the van. I somehow managed to talk to her for an hour or so, she wants to be a teacher when she grows older and shes learning english in school. She was too sweet! Once we arrived in Quepos our driver couldnt find our hostel and he pulled over about 4 times to ask people. When we finally found the hostel the whole family got out of the van to hug us goodbye. It was amazing.
Once in Quepos we stayed in wide mouth frog backpackers, which was pretty cool, for 10 dollars a night we had our own kitchen, pool, lawn chairs etc. So quepos is located approximately 7km away from manuel antonio. You stay in Quepos if you are on a budget, manuel antonio is super expensive tourist trap. So you take a bus from quepos for 25cents that takes you to manuel antonio, you get dropped off at manuel antonio public beach. We had no idea how to get to the reserve which is located down some trail by the public beach. A kind couple from calgary pointed us to the right direction. Manuel Antonio reserve is a huge marine/land reserve on the pacific coast of costa rica. You pay a 7 dollar entrace fee and essentially you are in the middle of no where, there is no tourist shop, there is no development along the beaches, you have to hike to get to all of them and you get to see wild animals along the way. We decided to do a hike, it was plus 35 and we are hiking up a huge hill at 11am, laura HATED IT!!! i loved it, she has this thing about sweating, if she sweats she starts to get crabby haha, so i ended up leaving her and walking about 30 ft ahead of her at my own pace, the hike lead you to many lookout points where you could get amazing views of the ocean and the reserve and then we made it to a beautiful beach. We were the only ones there until we got bombarded by a tour group of pasty whities who couldnt swim. We spent a few hours in the park and then headed back to Quepos

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