Manuel Antonio (Rainforest and Beach)

Cruising into Manuel Antonio with the gas gage tettering on the red mark, there were no petro stations to be found...my bad. Keith suggested getting it earlier, but I was sure there'd be some there. Opps. Luckily, after some difficulty finding our way out of the nearby town of Quepos, we rolled into the gas station and the gage still hadn't made it into the red yet!

Two classic Dad moments there---nearly running out of gas and circling... : )

We hung out on the beach, had some shrimp and fresh fish, watched white-faced monkeys play on the roof of our room, went for a night stroll on the beach, were bored senseless by Bob from New Jersey who only talked to hear himself and never asked about you ("there's a new disease called 'dengee' from mosquitos that'll kill you if you get it a second time"), and heard howler monkeys as we fell asleep. In the morning, we kicked off our shoes to wade across an estuary (there was a boat you could walk across instead but had to pay $2 pp!) and entered the second smallest national park in Costa Rica. We saw sloths, howler monkeys sleeping, a boa constricter crowded by at least 15 people with cameras as it slithered near the path, and several agoutis (see picture below).
















Our early morning walk was better for taking the steeper and therefore less traveled path. As we were leaving, the park was certainly starting to feel a bit crowded, even though they limit the number of people admitted in a day.

And then, suddenly, it was time to head home. We stopped at a roadside soda for a casado (literally this means 'married,' but is the name for a hearty workman's lunch of rice, beans, salad, fried plantain and meat) and some guanabana and cas juice. The toothless waiter man was nice, if a little hard to understand. He was an Obama fan---though surprisingly this fact was not extracted by my mom.

We took the scenic route home via Puriscal, which took oodles longer because--just after we switched and Keith started to drive--we encountered heavy fog, rain and traffic backed up for over an hour due to a road accident. Somehow he always managed to drive the least desirable bits!