Tues., Jan 14 - Day 8

Today was a great day.  After breakfast, we got off to a bit of a slow start due to some bus problems - the brakes weren’t quite working perfectly and Jonathan was going to take it in to get fixed, so we had to wait about 30 minutes for a different tour company to send a replacement bus to get us to our destination.  We were all really sad when we figured out that Jonathan didn’t get spend the day with us today because he’s so much fun, but we understood that it’s more important to get the bus fixed.  It ended up taking all day to get it fixed and he wasn’t able to join us until supper.  So, our substitute bus  drove us down the coast to the entrance of Manuel Antonio National Park.  At 8:30 as we were walking down the street it was already 95 degrees and extremely humid.  We were ready to hit the beach!  There’s about a mile hike from the entrance of the park to the beach, and along the way you can usually see lots of wildlife, which we did.  We saw our first monkey of the day, a family of deer (which are much smaller than the deer in Iowa), and others.  

Then we were finally at the beach!  The beach at Manuel Antonio is honestly my favorite beach that I’ve ever been to.  It is so beautiful and scenic, and it’s crescent-shaped, surrounded by a coral reef so the waves break very far out and by the time they get to shore they’re just big swells, so you can just hang out in the water and ride the waves.  We all had fun body surfing and floating, just relaxing the gorgeous water.  

About an hour into our beach time a family of white-faced capuchín monkeys moved through the beach area.  We were so excited!  Many of the students have been waiting to see the monkeys.  They were looking for food (unfortunately, they know that where there are people there is also food) and are very accustomed to being around people, so they got very close to us.  They can be naughty and try to take things from people’s bags, but we didn’t have any thefts to report at the end of the day. :)  There are some very smart raccoons that do the same thing, but they were a little more persistent.  We had to shoo them away several times, even with Rocío guarding our stuff.

Around 11:30 (during the time the sun’s rays are hottest) we took a hike along some trails of the national park so we could make sure that we were in the shade.  Manuel Antonio basically has an island which, over time, has been connected to the mainland by a sand bridge (which has not been there so long that it’s basically part of the jungle.  We hiked out to the island, up to the highest point and round the island.  We had a great view of a two-toed sloth hanging out up in a tree.  This was a very scenic hike, with many opportunities to take beautiful pictures of the ocean and the bay area of the beach.

Do you see the sloth way up there?  He really is there, I promise. :)

After our hike we swam some more, and then when everyone was hungry we left the park and got lunch at “El Marlín”.  I shared chicken nachos with Rocío, and they were fabulous.  I even liked the black beans in them. :)  One thing that I think is so smart is that they’re served as one big bowl of all the chips (which are homemade) and then all of the toppings are served in a separate platter, so you can load your chips however you want to.  I think more restaurants should do that!

After lunch we took taxis back to the hotel.  Some of swam in the pool (very refreshing!) and others went to shower right away.  At 6:00 we met again to go for supper at “El Avión”, which is a very good restaurant along the Pacific coast.  We missed the sunset by about an hour, but it’s still nice to be able to eat supper overlooking the ocean in an open-air restaurant.  “El Avión” means “The Plane”, and there is actually an old bomber inside of the restaurant.  The plane was originally stranded in Nicaragua and the owner had it taken apart and shipped down here, put back together, then build the restaurant around it.  The bar of the restaurant is inside the plane.  After we ate our supper we went inside the plane and Rocío taught us some salsa moves.  It was so much fun!  Jonathan is a great dancer, too.  We all decided that Jonathan’s the man. :)  Everybody had a great time!

Rocío gave us all a gift to remember our awesome experience in Costa Rica.

Jennifer and Jonathan making fish faces. :)

Our internet connection here is on the slow side and somewhat sporadic, so I haven't been able to upload pictures to the blog the last two days.  I'll try again tonight, but hopefully by tomorrow night when we're back in San José I'll be able to upload them.  Tomorrow we are going to the public beach in the morning until 11:00.  Jennifer and I will finish our surfing lesson, which will be fun.  The waves are supposed to be better in the morning as the tide is coming in, so it will probably be different from yesterday.  Then we’ll be able to come back to the hotel, shower quickly and check out, then it’s back to San José.  Even with as much fun as we’re having, I’m really looking forward to being home & seeing my family!