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Costa
Rica Adventure
March 5-20, 2005
After breakfast, we hopped on
the bus to the beach. Our plans were to bypass the public beach, and instead
enter Manuel Antonio National Park and spend the day at one of the beautiful
beaches along its shore. Manuel Antonio is the smallest
national park in Costa Rica, but it’s also the most crowded with
tourists. Much of the wildlife there
seems accustomed to people. So while
the monkeys we’d seen elsewhere were mainly in binocular range, these monkeys
came right up close to the people. There were warning signs everywhere asking
people to please not feed the monkeys, which unfortunately went unheeded by
many of the tourists.
Monkey at Manuel Antonio (Photo credit: CD) In addition to monkeys, we saw
iguanas right on the beach, large spiders (one gave Cathy a fright when it
crawled out of a toilet she was using), all sorts of lizards and birds and
interesting things like that.
Iguana lounging around on the beach (Photo credit: CD) We spent the day on the second
beach along the well-marked trail through the National Park. Relatively quiet, the beach was absolutely
beautiful, and we all had a great time relaxing and enjoying the waves. I lay
in the water and floated, thinking to myself that I should savour the moment because I didn’t know when the next time was
that I’d feel so relaxed and carefree.
As it turned out, I was right.
Beach in Manuel Antonio National Park (Photo credit: SHS) The sun was very hot that day,
and we all got sunburned despite our best efforts. My cold had progressed to
the blow-nose-constantly phase, and as such I kept wiping the sunscreen off
my nose. By the end of the day I looked a bit like Rudolph. Oh well, what can you do? Mid-afternoon, we hiked back
to the main public beach area, stopping at a restaurant for some drinks and
snacks. Cathy also made her most
significant souvenir purchase: Dora, a toy ignana, bought from a vendor along
the beach. She’d wanted to name him
Ignatius, but the vendor informed her that her name was Dora. A nine-year-old back at the hotel
explained that only the female iguanas have spikes on their backs. Whether
that’s true or not, I have no idea, but it seemed to make sense.
Cathy with Dora the Iguana (Photo credit: CD) That evening was our “last
night together” as a group, since Julie had another tour beginning the next
day and we were all heading back to San José at different times. We decided to make the most of it, by
going back to the Bamboo Jam restaurant where we’d had dessert the other
night. The food was nothing
spectacular, but every Friday night there was a jam session with local
musicians. The music was lively and
some of the musicians and patrons were dancing very enthusiastically. Everyone took about a zillion group
pictures that night.
Me, Julie and Cathy having dinner at the Bamboo Jam (Photo credit: CD) After dinner, we headed back
to the hotel and I, still fighting my cold, fell asleep almost right away.
Some of the others headed to the beach for a massive beach party. It had
started to rain a little, and they apparently got an awesome display of
thunder and lightning on the beach. We still had one day left, but
for all intents and purposes, the trip was over. I didn’t want to leave
Quepos. I didn’t want to go
home. I wanted to stay and see more
of the country and continue the adventure.
But all good things must eventually come to an end. Next: Return to San José, and a lousy end to a great trip |
