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Published: March 19th 2010
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Map of Manuel Antonio
Map of the Manuel Antonio Trails. We awoke and came to the sudden realization that there is a MAJOR difference between Jungle and Tropical Jungle! It was hot & sticky, much more humid than it was in the jungle. In fact, it was in the morning that we saw the first cockroach in our hotel room at La Colina...
Now, I SHOULD preface this by saying that was the first and only time we saw a cockroach in the room... Once we'd occupied it for awhile it didn't show up again. Probably just got a glance and said, "shoot, the humans are here!"... either that or running the air conditioning all night, something gave it away...
Well, when it came to La Colina the cockroach was the lesser of three evils... First off, we were staying in the Jungle Room. It's the least expensive of all the rooms at La Colina and for a reason. It should be called the "I hear everything room"... and I know this is probably just me being a pansy American or something but we could hear everything from the room upstairs... and it was a group of four German girls. Normally, I'd be okay with this... you know, "half
The Public Autobus
A Public Autobus that runs from Quepos to Manuel Antonio every half hour. full" guy and someone who never complains, but it was so creaky that I could hear four sets of bare feet walking on the floor... next, our room faced a busy street that had a sharp corner. You could hear the near misses and squealing brakes just about all night long... the third evil was the smell... it was very musty and reminded me of Summer Camp. In all fairness, I didn't think these were reason enough to switch hotels, but it did bring back some weird adolescent memories of Church Camp... but like I said, this wasn't going to distract us from having an awesome time.
After a quick breakfast we walked to the bus stop and jumped on the local Autobus. There is a bus that runs from
Quepos to Manuel Antonio every half hour, starting at 6 in the morning and going until 10 in the evening. It's about the only thing I found inexpensive in Costa Rica being that it was 480 colonies (or a little over 90 cents USD) for us to take the bus.
When we arrived in Manuel Antonio we followed a group of tourist two blocks to the entry to
Crazy Vine
A Crazy Vine in the Tropical Rain Forest of Manuel Antonio. the
Manuel Antonio National Park. The park costs $10 USD to get in (or 5370 colonies) per person and is open from 7 to 4 everyday, except on Monday. When we entered the park we were repeatedly asked if we wanted a guide from several folks... this is expected when in Central America, but I didn't think that a government park would have so many people attempting to get you to take their guidance... and it's a hard price to pay after the entry fee!
Once we paid we were in... At the beginning of the trail there is a sign that tells you where to go and what trails to take. We started on the main trail for a bit but then we saw a quick "off shoot". We took that and within a few steps we were literally knee deep in thick and lush tropical rain forest. There are tiny lizards everywhere, scurrying about trying to eat some bugs for brunch.
We walked quite away in until the trail virtually disappeared... At this point I noticed that it felt like it was raining, but it wasn't like a "cool and calm" sort of rain. And then I realized what
Using A Vine
Megan uses a vine on the trail. it was... there were so many leaves and seeds dropping, almost all at once, that it gave a vague appearance of a light rain. We turned around and headed back to the main trail... once we were back on the main trail we saw a sloth with her baby and some intensely colored butterflies.
We continued down the trail until we reached the ocean... and let me tell you, it was breathtaking. It was clean, and not just like "free from garbage" clean, it was pristine. There were no vendors trying to sell you snacks or trinkets, no one was bothering you about giving you a tour, just the calmness of the ocean that suddenly hits you from walking out of the chaotic jungle. It really is something that words can't describe.
Here we setup a tiny camp... since we came pretty unprepared for swimming we sort of just made it up as we went along. Really a towel was only a luxury to remove sand. The sun did a fine job of drying our skin up. So, instead of a towel I used my t-shirt and ended up really sacrificing it to the gods of sandy feet.
Swimming in the Ocean
Swimming in the Ocean at Manuel Antonio. We trekked back to the park entrance and headed back into the town of Manuel Antonio. We found and Italian restaurant and had a
Margherita Pizza, found me a replacement shirt and checked out the Public (non-National Park) beaches.
The Public beaches are pretty nice too, but not nearly as clean as the National Parks. Here is where we see surfers and many folks enjoying the beach... but more about that in tomorrow's entry.
We then took the public autobus back to La Colina, had a dinner of Tiger Shrimp, chips and guacamole. We saw four
Toucans from where we were sitting in the restaurant. This was a great day at a beautiful place.
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