Two weeks ago Steve and I had a weekend off to go to Manuel Antonio. I wrote a post about our first day but never got around to telling you what we did with the rest of the weekend! I strayed from my blog for two weeks because I was trying to enjoy and take-in our time off...not be consumed by the internet, blogging, facebook, etc. After that weekend things got busy around the lodge and time got away from me. But here I am now! Ready to fill you in on the rest of our weekend off....
It was amazing. It felt so good to be out on our own, exploring the town and not having any expectations from others. On Friday we went to Manuel Antonio National Park. Part of the fun was the journey getting there. We took the bus into Manuel Antonio and then walked a small rode/path that led to the park. The rode was beautiful...palm trees, cute stands with necklaces & other trinkets, ice cream stores, coconut water stands, etc. The park costs $16 a person. We decided not to do a guided tour based on local advice, we were told that there are so many tours everywhere you can just watch and see what the guides point at. Very true. We were able to walk to park at our own pace by caught a glimpse of sloths, monkeys & snakes when guides pointed them out. You honestly couldn't miss them because all the people would point, gather and pull out their cameras. The park itself is beautiful and we were so excited to finally see monkeys! They were so adorable, we saw monkeys up close and got some great pictures and video! (Which hopefully I can post on here soon). At one point we watch baby monkeys jump around 8 feet from one tree to another...it was an amazing experience. We also saw a poisonous snake on a tree and of course Steve got closer than I was comfortable with, but we all know I have no control over that! We got some cool pictures of that as well. After exploring the jungle a bit we headed to the National Park beach. The sand at this beach was much nice and the waves were calmer. They were the perfect waves for relaxing and bobbing up and down. The water was warm and it was an amazing time laying out, building sand castles, bobbing in the water and reading by the beach. We even had some raccoons try to sneak by our bags. We weren't impressed by this but a lot of the other tourists were...it was hilarious they were pulling out their nice cameras trying desperately to get good pictures of RACCOONS! We also saw some bearded dragons and got amazing pictures of them. I can't wait to post some of these pictures for you guys to see once we get better Internet. After the beach we headed out of the park and stopped at a local ice cream shop. The guy who owned it was running it with his two young daughters, they moved here a few years ago from California. We have run into a lot of families who moved here after vacationing. It sounds pretty cool, but I am still not sold on the idea of moving to Costa Rica. Too humid and hot all of the time, and not sure how I feel about the culture. Everything here is about earning tips. (I will get into that in another post) After our ice cream we watched the sunset on the public beach and then took the bus back into Quepos. Once in Quepos we at at a local restaurant called Ticos Bar y Restaurate, it was priced well, good food and 2 for 1 margaritas and sangria...perfect for us. We chose to eat there because it looked like a nice atmosphere, beautiful bricks inside. I'm not going to lie, I ordered chicken fingers. Steve had Ceviche and he loved it...only wished he had a bigger bowl! After dinner we headed back to Villas Jacquelina and called it a night. On Saturday we did a Manuel Antonio Sunset Catamaran tour with Planet Dolphin. It was beautiful! We couldn't have asked for a nicer day. We got on the tour at the Quepos Marina and headed out to sea. There were about 30 other tourists with us. The second we got on the boat we were handed a drink. The tour included 8 drinks and dinner...but the drinks were extremely weak. We saw sting rays, dolphins, etc all swimming near our boat. The boat drove around the different views of Manuel Antonio National Park and then stopped by some reef for snorkeling. The snorkeling was pointless...there was NOTHING to see at the reef. I mean nothing. Then they opened up slides on top of the boat and people began going down the slides and jumping off the top. I got some funny videos of Steve on the slide. It was clear everyone on the boat was having a good time...there was a lot of laughing. Then dinner was served while we headed out to the sunset. We had fish skewers, noodles and fresh fruit. It was all fresh and yummy. The sunset ended up being a let down, hardly any color and lots of clouds but we didn't care...we see plenty of pretty sunsets at home on the lake in the summer...we were just happy to have the views of the beaches and mountains. Sunday concluded our trip to Manuel Antonio. We did a little bit of shopping, ate at SUBWAY :) Yes there is a subway, and yes it tastes the same. Then we headed back to the Lodge for another week of work....hi ho hi ho, off to work we go....
1 Comment
Dad
14/4/2015 11:00:42 am
Thanks for the post to keep us up to date. I sense a bit more "go with the flow" attitude that is very much part of the culture...
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