World Costa Rica Puntarenas Manuel Antonio National Park

AJ's Central America Trip

Manuel Antonio Jul 11, 2006

After about 100 meters on the way towards Manuel Antonio, the road turned from paved to non-paved, pot-hole/giant puddle filled jungle trail...and we loved every minute of it. The three of us decided to rent a badass diesel pickup truck in Dominical, despite the fact that it was a bit more expensive then public transportation. Overall, it was worth every penny. As we became more comfortable with the road, we picked up speed and bounced our truck the 50+km to Manuel Antonio, with short stops to take pictures of us and our manly vehicle.

Manuel Antonio is breathtaking; it's a beautiful national park on the Pacific Ocean home to a unique set of flora and fauna. The approach is also remarkable; one must drive about 7km up and down a large hill to get to the town closest to the national park. The summit of this hill (about 4km from the park) contains elite (and expensive) hotels and restaurants with breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean, along with an uninhabited island near the beaches. After arriving into the small town, we grabbed a quick bite, hung with our friends, and hit a popular night club a taxi ride away.

The following day, we joined our new English friends on a tour of Manuel Antonio National Park, which turned out to be a brutal test of a few items:

(a) not complaining about the heat

(b) not complaining about the massive amounts of body sweat disgustingly pouring from Ian

(c) our determination to continue our reputation as cheap bastards. (We passed a couple beaches on the tour, which were quite tempting, however, having paid $15, we couldn't very well leave the tour!!!)

In the end, we were amazed at our guide's ability to spot a small bug about 500 meters away on a tree (at which point, he would set up a small telescope for us average humans to check out). Oh yeah, and he liked to eat spiders. HUGE spiders,,,we'll, eat is a strong word, but it was quite disconcerting. 1/2 way through the tour, he pointed out one of the bigger spiders I've ever seen, and suddenly grabbed it and popped it into his mouth, so we could enjoy watching it crawl out of his mouth and onto his face. Eric tried to pull in our tour guide for a quick kiss after his spider incident, however, to his disappointment, the tour guide apologized stating that he only went for guys in spandex, not board shorts.

After the lengthy 2 hour tour, we relaxed on one of the more beautiful beaches we've seen on the trip thus far. (A beach inside the park). The night contained a relaxing dinner and a somewhat early night.

The following morning, we awoke to heavy thundershowers, which drowned our aspirations of doing nothing on a beach for 5 hours that day. Manuel Antonio has over 150 rivers draining the hills into the Pacific Ocean, so one can imagine the uncanny feeling we had when first looking out onto the beach to, literally, a sea of muddy water. The three of us drove into town determined to make the most our of a rainy day by hitting a local market and finding a hole-in-the-wall local restaurant. After picking up some lychee's and a huge papaya, (Eric's super travel cure), we met a very nice (but filthy-minded) local named Marvin. The three of us clicked instantly, and we had to turn him down for extra beers at another bar. Marvin advised that we need to call all Latin American women either Princessa or Mi Amor, in order to get the best chance at service. We originally figure that he was simply discussing how to interact with our waitress, until he broke out with a few stories quite unacceptable to this public setting. (Grandma Paula would DEFINITELY not approve). Overall, (minus some of his more descriptive stories), Marvin was the epitome of a welcoming Costa Rican. He bought us a round, spoke with us about what we should do in Costa Rica, invited us to his home if we ever visited again, and thanked us for visiting his country.

We ended the day with a sunset drink at El Avion; a restaurant at the top of the hill. We downed some appetizers along with a couple beers while watching the electrical storms in the distance. Manuel Antonio was definitely one of the highlights thus far.