Our Last Fun Day

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We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast at Club Fred. Fresh fruits and cereal and great coffee. We hang oout for the longest time not wanting to leave and hoping to see a macaw or 2. I was talking with Ely when I heard them! I have a macaw and can recognize that scream no matter what country they are in. They flew in over the river, yelling like only macaws can and looking like they were having a blast. Mary shot a bunch of pictures,, but they look like little red dots. And then they were gone, but wow they were beautiful. To see them flying wild is something I will never forget.

We opted to drive the Costanera up to Manuel Antonio. I was nervous (of course) to go over the rickety bridges, but again Mary's sense of adventure prevailed and off we went. It turns out I was nervous for nothing. The road is being paved and for the most part is flat and easy to travel. It is only underlayment, no asphalt so it is really dusty, but way less scary than the mountain roads. We were able to go along at a decent clip until you hit construction. Which was the oddest thing, there seemed to be little rhyme or reason to where you would hit construction. We kind of thought that you would start at the both ends and pave to the middle, but it seemed that they were working closer to the middle and then sporadically out to the ends of the road. Anyway, most of the bridges are done, nice wide bridges. We only had to pass over one that looked like the ones you see on youtube.

As we went North, I liked it less and less because it looked more and more like here. There are developments with bigger homes and more traffic. Jaco had a really big multi-story hotel that loomed out of place in the Costa Rica we had come to love. Fittingly right after Jaco we got stopped by the police. There was a little guard house and the officer saw our shining white faces and blonde hair and motioned us to stop. Ugh. Stupidly, I spoke to him in spanish, in retrospect I should have played dumb and not understood what he said. Anyway he informed me that they strongly enforced the seatbelt laws in Costa Rica and we were not wearing ours. We would be issued 2 tickets at 15,000 colones each ( a little more than $26.00). I told him that I did not have colones, all I had was $20 would he take it? He was thinking for a second when helpful Mary - understanding part of the conversation - piped in with "Wait! I have colones!" lol you could see the dollar signs in his eyes. Well Mary had 20,000 colones which he accepted in addition to my $20. Of course we got no paperwork, no receipt, nothing. He invited us back to Costa Rica though!

Poorer and no wiser we sped off, seatbelts on, to Manuel Antonio. Thank God we had the belts on! As we were discussing the things we coulda, shoulda, woulda, the road ran out. Now there may have been signs, we weren't really paying attention, but all of a sudden on this wide road there were cement baracades and we were barrelling towards them at 50 miles an hour. I don't know how Mary managed to stop the car, but she put it sideways and didn't hit anything! Whew heart pounding moment!

We arrived in Manuel Antonio after that. We ate in a restaurant made out of one of the planes from the Iran Contra Affair. It was pretty cool. The bar was in the plane and you walk under the wings to get into the restaurant. The food was excellent and so was the view. We went to the national park after that. Manuel Antonio was a let down after our experiences in Hacienda Baru. As you drive around town people shout to you from every parking lot, AMIGA AMIGA park here. We finally parked right next to the entrance and the guy said it would be 2 dollars and he would watch our car and make sure nothing happened to it. Of course I was convinced we would come back to no car, especially when he told us to pay when we returned. There were tons of tour operators at the gate trying to convince you to take a tour. We opted not to. We went into the park and followed behind a tour. Everytime they stopped we could see what they were looking at so it was the poor gals tour lol. We heard tons of howlers but didn't see any. Oh it costs $10 per person to get into the park. It is worth it because the park is really beautiful. The beaches were more crowded than Hacienda Baru (ok so we were the only ones on the beach there so 1 more person would have made it crowded lol). We walked the shorter trail and saw an iguana and this really silly racoon. Then it started to pour so we headed on out. Unfortunately we wound up on the other side of the park so we had quite the hike to get back. All was not lost though cause we bought a pipa from a local vendor on the beach and wound up in the street vendor section. I got a few dresses and shirts there for the folks back home.

On the road to the car we finally saw our monkeys! There were all these white faced cappuchins in the trees outside of the park. lol We apid and didn't see them in the park and here they were for free laughing at us. We watched them for a while, it's incredible how they go from tree to tree without falling, even the little guys!

We finally found the car and sure enough the guy had kept it safe! Somethings are so surprising lol. From there we went to look for a hotel close to the airport. I really don't recommend driving at night. I was soooo scared, the roads are curvy and dark and of course it was misting so they were wet and visibility was poor. Mary drove really slowly, but I was in tears coming down the mountain. It's not like they would see you dive off of the cliff, who knows when you would be found. But we made it. We drove all around Alajuela looking for a hotel. Boy I loved that GPS program, I am going to have to buy it before we move.

The hotels were really expensive in comparison to what we were used to paying. we finally opted for the Hotel Aeropuerto at $90 a night. Well sort of $90, see they quote the price in dollars, then they convert it to colones using a higher rate and charge that to your credit card, which then converts it back to dollars. So you wind up paying like $95 dollars. Anyway we were exhausted, there was a shower, TV!!, and internet so we coughed up the money and had a great night.

Sadly, we left for home the next day. Boy I miss Costa Rica. Can't wait to go back!

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