Costa Rica | Day 7 – Being a tourist!
Day 7 | Sunday October 26, 2008
5:00am, up and out the door! First stop Puntarenas to pick up the Lashers, the parents of an old friend from high school, Richie. They have been on a cruise and just came from Guatemala and their stop for the day is Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Andrew and I rented a car and drove about an hour north along the Pacific coast highway to meet them as they disembarked from their cruiseliner and the plan was to head to Manuel Antonio National Park for the day to check out some wildlife and some of Costa Rica’s supposed best beaches.
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So about three hours later we arrive in Manuel Antonio and for starters, this place is beautiful. The beaches are clandestine, just like in the brochures! Ha! So yeah, we park as directed as we enter the National Park area and find ourselves paying for what I decided was actually free parking. I only say this because I saw other people (obviously not locals) cruise by these guys and park down the street without paying. From there we are approached by “guides” who are offering up their services. Good idea eh? We came here to see sloths, toucans, turtles, iguanas damnit, so if it means sourcing some local knowledge I’m down. We have the option of going it alone, maybe we could save a few bucks and get adventurous? anyhow, we talk homie down a couple dollars and decide that we want the most out of the experience…we are off.
So it was about a 2.2km hike in to the park and we would end up back on one of the finest beaches costa rica apparently has to offer, back by where we entered. We saw lots of exotic little bugs that make funny noises, in particular the Secada, what an alien looking little fucker. We saw an incredible amount of sloths, oooooh the sloths! What content little creatures… can anything or anyone be more graceful and more deliberate about their movements? Oy, these guys are sweet. So yeah, we saw quite a few creatures, some bats, iguanas, deer, monkies, and more… it was scorching hot and I didn’t even hop into the water but I’d say it was worth the $20 plus the $10 entry fee to the park.
On the way home I’m passed out, the 5:00am wake up call was taking its toll. We also were graced with another afternoon downpour which resulted in flooded streets and an interesting ride home. It was incredible to see how unaffected locals seemed to be by the rain… we passed many bicycles and motorcycles and people hanging out at bustops…life just commences despite the pounding rain.
