Manuel Antonio

09/06/09 - 14/06/09

As a reward for our hike up Chirripo, afterwards we planned to spend four or five days at the beach. The first beach we headed to was Dominical, which was supposed to be one of the smaller and less touristic beaches, yet still popular. We did not like it! It's a great place for surfers, but we haven't had any lessons yet, and we didn't settle in Dominical long enough to have any, so although Vic really wanted to stay in one place for a few days, we decided to move on again the next day to Manuel Antonio, not knowing what to expect, but thinking that anywhere had to better than Dominical. The one night we spent there was quite fun though as we went to watch the NBA finals, and although we had to watch most of the game without sound, there was a great atmosphere and I found myself really enjoying it, so we ended up following the rest of the series over the next few days to see the LA Lakers beat the Florida Magic by 4 games to 1 (best of 7). We were cheering on the Lakers as they have a Spanish player, Pau Gasol, who Vic likes, and who has now become the first Spanish player to win at the NBA Finals.

To get to Manuel Antonio, we had to get the bus to a place called Quepos, from where we got a taxi to our hostel. From there, it was a quick ride on the bus for only 25p to get to the beach, where we spent quite a bit of our time and managed to get sunburnt...oops! The only annoying thing is that you are constantly approached by people selling things. Waiters from nearby restaurants offering food and drinks, others offering pineapple and olives, or coconuts or granizados (flavoured ice drinks). We did actually buy two of these and they were great. We went for la bomba (the bomb) which had 7 different flavours of syrup, as well as powdered and condensed milk. And there must have been about 15 different people selling ceramic pots in a variety of sizes and designs. We saw them everywhere...on the beach, walking along the street, even in restaurants. Apart from going to the beach, we also enjoyed just spending time on the terrace of our hostel, laying in the hammocks and watching the birds and monkeys below. We also had a great view of the sea from there and it was always so peaceful. We were in a room of four, and the first couple of nights, we shared with a girl called Alexis from Maryland, USA. After she left, a couple from Amsterdam, Martine and Baudewyn moved in, and the four of us actually ended up travelling on to the next place together. We met lots of other people during our stay there, it was a very sociable place and we highly recommend it to anyone travelling to Manuel Antonio. It's called Vista Serena, is in a great location, the prices are very reasonable and the people are great!!!

Manuel Antonio also has a National Park, with various different walks and three beautiful beaches. We didn't spend any time on the beaches there, preferring instead to hunt for animals, as we hadn't managed to see anything at Poas or Chirripo, and at first it seemed that we weren't going to be very lucky, as people would tell us that they had seen 4 or 5 monkeys in one place, and we wouldn't see a thing when we got there. We saw a couple of sloths (one with a baby) and lots and lots of lizards and similar-looking things (not sure what they're called but they're a bit bigger), but still after a couple of hours we hadn't seen any monkeys :( Our perseverance paid off though, as later on we saw two different groups of monkeys and got some great photos and videos. Unfortunately, we haven't worked out if we're able to put videos on here yet!