Manuel Antonio

I haven't blogged in a while because I have been extremely busy! This past week was very eventful :) Last weekend Lindsey and I went to Manuel Antonio for a mini vacation. Manuel Antonio is about 3 hours away from San Jose and we took a bus on Saturday morning. We actually made it in time for the 6am bus; which we had not been able to accomplish yet! There was a huge farmers market with every kind of fruit or vegtable you can imagine. We bought some really good carrot bread and whole wheat sweet bread for the bus ride.

We arrived in Manuel Antonio around 9am and found a hotel for the night. We didn't make any reservations so it was quite the adventure to find a hotel that had available rooms for a Saturday night. We had to visit 4 different hotels in order to find one that would work. My card was also getting declined for no reason at all and it was a very frustrating! Once we finally got our hotel room it was off to the beach for the day :)

The beach was so beautiful and filled with people. We spent the day lounging around and did some swimming in the ocean. The ride tides were very strong so our swimming adventure was exhausting and we had a few close under current calls! Thankfully we came out on top :)

On Sunday morning we got up really early and took off for the National Park. It was only $10 for admission and you can leave and re-enter if needed. We hiked for almost 3 hours through the national park before we reached the Mirador trail and were able to look out over the rainforest. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

After we hiked through the park, we went to the National Park Beach and set up in a small cove area for the rest of the day to relax and enjoy the ocean, wildlife and our other surroundings.

There was so much wildlife that we were able to see in the park. It was 100 times better than a zoo....and I LOVE the zoo. We saw both two and three toed sloths, squirrel monkeys, white-faced monkeys, iguanas, snakes, agouti, crabs, birds, butterflies, and even racoons. The white-faced monkeys were fighting over a bag of chips right along the treeline at the beach. They were so fun to watch!



I definitely plan on returning to Manuel Antonio! The National Park was so amazing and we didnt even cover 1/3 of it. The park has several other beaches than the one we went to and several trails as well. Next time I would consider getting a tour guide to help point out more wildlife. They bring a tripod that they set up so you can see the animals more closely. Luckily we were able to still spot and see a lot of them in the wild.

                                                                                I was so close to this Iguana I could 

                                                                           have touched it but I didn't want to take any chances!