Manuel Antonio 2/15-2/16

The day after arriving in Costa Rica, we hopped on a bus at 6 AM (by ourselves) to ride 3 1/2 hours to Manuel Antonio on the Pacific coast. Manuel has some of the most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica and some pretty nice hiking.

We stayed for one night at the beautiful Villas Nicolas. Our villa had a huge balcony with a comfortable hammock, offering a spectacular view of the ocean. We spent the first day lounging about the pool and playing in the ocean. We ate dinner at a restaurant built around a cargo plane that was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal from the Cold War.

We hit the trails on the second morning and saw quite a bit of wildlife including monkeys, iguanas, tropical birds, and a sloth. The monkeys were particularly bold; apparently they will steal your food if you leave it lying around. There was a little stand selling traditional Costa Rican fare by the beach where we snagged some lunch.

It turns out that buses in Costa Rica don't necessarily stop at the bus stops. There were so many buses going to and from Manuel that we managed to miss ours. Thinking it was half an hour late, we tried to get on the next bus that came through. We showed the driver our tickets, resulting in an animated conversation between Andrew and the bus driver, one party speaking only Spanish, the other only English. There was a good deal of gesturing and pointing until another passenger offered to translate. We were informed that we would have to stand the whole way back (3 1/2 hours, I'll remind you). That offer sounded better than trying to find a place to sleep for the night, so we took it. We were only without seats for about an hour, so it worked out.