Manuel Antonio

Last weekend some students decided to go on our own trip. We went to Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific Ocean. We rented our own bus and filled it to bursting with 29 people. The trip was about 4.5 hours (up, down and around like usual). We stayed at the Backpacker’s hostel. The room I stayed in had 5 bunk beds and was attached to another room with 4 bunks…and only 1 bathroom! The hostel was pretty cool. The common area is open air on three sides and contained a little kitchen, picnic tables, foosball, a few couches, a stereo and games. Also on the hill next to this area was a rope to swing on.

making pancakes for breakfast

me on the rope swing

We got up at 6:30 Saturday morning and hopped a bus to take us down the hill and to the park. Most of us paid for a guide to take us through the park. The guides are very knowledgeable about the plants and animals. They carry telescopes with them and set them up often when they spot creatures for us to look at. They are very good at seeing the animals, big and small, that I never would have seen walking by myself. We saw sloths, monkeys, spiders, insects, lots of crabs, a deer on the beach and iguanas.

sloth (my guide took this photo through the telescope)

The beach we went to was inside the park and it was beautiful! We spent the afternoon at the beach, me mostly in the shade. I also went with two others and climbed the rocks along one side out to a point. I climbed the large rock there and that is where one of the guys took the picture that I have on my profile.

Some of us decided to walk back to the hostel. When you ride the bus, you don’t realize how far it is. It is almost all uphill and took us about an hour. We picked up some food from the grocery store and ate dinner at the hostel. I spent the evening at the hostel with several others and watched the futbol game (Costa Rica vs. Mexico).

"Still more monkeys than people"

playing uno at the hostel

The next morning we went back to the beach for a few hours and then returned home. I was happy to see everyone on Skype Sunday night.  I also really enjoyed looking at the pictures from family camp.