Manuel Antonio

On the way to Manuel Antonio we crossed a bridge that stretched over a river full of crocodiles. There were three crocodiles hanging out on the edge of the river and we even saw some of them swimming upstream.

As soon as I walked out of my hotel room which I shared with Jessica I was greeted with a beautiful view of the area right before the beach. Jessica and I had a hammock on our porch that I lounged in for a little while.

The beaches in Manuel Antonio National Park were absolutely beautiful. The sands were white and a lot of wildlife lived in the "wet forest" that bordered the beaches. Before we actually went to the beach we went on a guided tour of the forest. In the forest we saw sloths, monkeys, land crabs, bats, and many plants. One of the trees grows pepper, our guide told us that the process of getting the pepper out of the tree takes about two weeks. We also smelled the stem of a leaf that contained a natural insect repellent. The repellent smelled like a nice citrus. Two of the people in the group even ate a leaf that had quinine in it, which is used in malaria pills.

After spending some time at the beach in Manuel Antonio I went horseback riding with Jessica, Rebecca, and Landis on a rural beach about 40 minutes away from our hotel. The rural beach was extremely different than Manuel Antonio. We did not see anymore than 20 other people while we were on our horses. The guide told us that in Manuel Antonio there are over 200 hotels and in the area that we were in only had 3 hotels. Our guide was so nice and told us a lot about his life. His name was Roberto. Roberto owned the horses and had been working with Iguana Tours for over 20 years. Previously to working with Iguana tours he had also worked as a teacher in the mountains and on the ranch with his father. Roberto was extremely pleased to hear that Jessica, Rebecca, and I were all education majors. He told us how Costa Rica does not have a military army, but rather an army of teachers. On our way back to where we began riding the horses we got to see a beautiful sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

Sunday was spent traveling back to San Jose. I was looking forward to seeing my Tica family again. I missed having breakfast and dinner with them over the weekend. Jose Daniel greeted me at the door with a huge hug and I spent most of the evening hanging out with him. We even had a pillow fight!