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Published: November 13th 2006
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Es la pura vida
I have no idea what this is . . . but I like it. "Pura vida." It's about the good things in life that come from what's natural, and Ticos (Costa Ricans) love saying it. And I've loved living it for the past few days. (Mav, because I know you're reading this, I just wanted you to know that they also say "man" exactly like in Scarface. It's awesome. And I say it every chance I get.)
As my last foreign stopover before making it back home, I landed at the international airport in San José, Costa Rica, on Friday afternoon and was prompted greeted by rain, which begins like clockwork every afternoon--2:00 in San José, 4:00 in Quepos. (Speaking of rain, it just began to downpour outside of my little internet café.) Leaving the big city, I grabbed a bus directly south to Quepos and the Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio. When I say directly, I mean not at all. I watch the distance markers outside the windo was they rushed past the bus: "Quepos 164" "Quepos 108" "Quepos 70" "Quepos 69" "Quepos 72" "Quepos 47" "Quepos 105" "Quepos 23" Either way, I finally made it.
The following morning, I set off for the park . . . and was blown away. The
High wire act
Canopying through the . . . canopy. park is one of Costa Rica's smallest, but nevertheless amazingly beautiful. There are a number of paths through the park which you can hike and, with quite little luck, see tons of animals. Really, the number and variety of animals is quite amazing. Over the two days (and most, both days)I saw: black howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys, capuchin monkeys, coatis, raccoons, snakes, turtles, several species of lizards including iguanas, several species of birds, green poison arrow dart frogs, sloths, hermit crabs, several species of land crabs, sea urchins, and more. The capuchins are so used to humans being around that they don't even pay you any attention and will go about their business, within meters of you. I never got anywhere near that close to monkeys in the Amazon or Pantanal. Guided tours are available and the guides carry around tripod binoculars which I was told are very helpful for seeing wildlife. My technique though was to just pass by a tour group and look up whenever they had the binoculars set up and catch of a bit of an explanation of something . . . for free. Either way, you can spend a few hours hiking the trails of
My brothern
This sucker was about a meter away from me. the park, and then spend the afternoon lying out on one of the glorious beaches that the park also offers.
Today, I had a canopy tour through another part of the jungle that was not only a lot of fun, but a great way to get a different prespective on the forest. Following that, I made it back to the park to . . . pretty much do the same thing I had done the day before. It's funny how one tends to start doing weird/riskier things when one is alone, bored, and in nature . . . orrr maybe that's just me. Either way, following lunch, I started climbing over the rocky coastline past the farthest beach for quite a while until I deemed it a bit too dangerous, plus I was worried the the incoming tide might make my return impossible for a few hours, so I scurried back. I then continued on from the first beach I was at, climbing over similar terrain to the main beach. While this was going on, I saw the park ranger boat. I'm pretty sure they were watching me because they got pretty close but never actually said anything. Ah,
Gurrapo
These things are freakin' everywhere and the park. In fact, I almost accidentally stepped on one or two. life as a fugitive. Later on in the afternoon, I also walked one of the main trails in the opposite direction and barefoot. The mud was yummy squishing between my toes.
As for the town of Quepos itself, there's not much going on here, basically lots of gringos. I honestly hate towns like this. If I wanted old tourists, happy hour, and no Spanish spoken, I'd be in Florida right now. (Exclude Miami from the last part of that sentence.) But alas, such is the curse of having such a beautiful, safe, tropical country--it gets overrun by gringos.
Either way, I definitely dig what I've seen of the country (and drank of their coffee!). One startling thing that I did not expect was the omnipresence of Jansport backpacks. I have no idea why, but Jansport seems to have a monopoly on the market of backpacks here. Also, there is a plethora of bad English signage by (I assume) Ticos who know spoken English from tourists, but can't write it very well. Examples: "Your add here." "Laundry servis." "Dear visitor, wedt you're in the park . . ." and "Will be waiting for you" (instead of "We'll").
It's
Ent
A very quite tall tree . . . the oldest in the park too really sad to see my travels coming to an end, but I'm very glad for the opportunity to at least get a taste of Peru and Costa Rica. It just know that I have to come back soon.
Thank you to everyone that's been supportive over the past few months and has managed to read through my ramblings. I love you all and can't wait to see you soon.
Signing off (temporarily),
MonkeyBoy/Andy
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Mav
non-member comment
you go mang!!
the pics from this entry are some of your best dude. glad you got to hang out with some of your brethren--john chimpo was glad to meet you at last i'm sure. don't know how you "almost stepped on one or two" of those gurrapos when they look like they're about as big as Dave (so about the size of a hobbit). nice title with the Ent, good touch. and your last picture is simply beautiful man. musta been unreal to actually be there. happy trails home amigo, can't wait to hear about it all over a tall cool 420, or maybe a Sam Adams Oktoberfest, or just an old fashioned Guiness. talk atcha soon mang.