Manuel Antonio!

I'm sorry that I have not blogged in so so long!  There's so much to catch up on!  I'll start off by talking about my wonderful weekend trip to Manuel Antonio National Park and Quepos.  As usual, we got a bright and early start Friday morning when we met at the school at 6:30am.  We took a bus to San Jose, almost missed our stop, but got to the Coca Cola Station in plenty of time to catch the 9am bus to Quepos-Manuel Antonio.  At the bus stop, we met a girl from Montreal who was backpacking through Costa Rica for three weeks by her self!   She had just gotten into San Jose and was just starting her journey.  The coolest part was that I got to speak a little bit of French with her!  Of course, it wasn't easy since I have been in hardcore Spanish mode for the past month, but it wasn't too bad. :)  After a 3.5 hr bus ride, we finally arrived at our Hostel (Backpackers...12 dollars a night).  We immediately changed into our beach gear and caught the local bus to the public beach.

Public Beach

The public beach was a lot nicer than I expected with waves that were so strong they could knock you down if you didn't have your feet firmly planted in the sand. haha.  We laid our stuff down and when we looked up, we saw a sign that said, "Peligro, Lagarto" (Danger, Alligator) in a swampy area separating the beach from the rest of the land...it looked pretty suspicious.  The sign was facing the beach, however, and it was hilarious to watch people wade through the waist deep water in order to get to the beach, turn around, see the sign, and freak out.  It was basically our entertainment for the afternoon.  After sun started to go down, we went into the town and looked at the shops...Touristy cities in Costa Rica= ridiculously expensive.

Don't feed the monekys!

Day 2, we went into the National Park!  The park was so wonderfully undisturbed.  It was like walking right into the middle of the jungle.  The main attraction of the park is the wildlife.... We saw monkeys, sloths, lizards, birds, crabs, and tons of crazy looking bugs!  The big trail in the park is the one that leads to the private beach.  This beach was easily the prettiest beach I've ever seen in my life.  But really, it was breathtaking. 

Manuel Antonio

*Side note:  I just had a battle of epic proportions with a scary looking bird sized moth in my room.  I won. :)

Beach in Manuel Antonio

When we were walking out of the park, we saw a sloth right off the path at eye level!  Sloths only ever come down from their tree once every week to use the bathroom.   They're super slow, hence super vulnerable.   Anyway, it was so cool to see a sloth so close up!  It was an awesome weekend, and it will be hard to top.  The only downside was that we had to take the public bus like 6 times over the course of the weekend.  Oh well... It was only about 50 cents each way, so it wasn't too bad.  I'll have to continue with my blogging tomorrow afternoon.  I'm so tired. 

Sloth!