Fourth Stop: Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

We said goodbye to the beach at Nicoya Peninsula (much to the kid's dismay... they wanted more pool time and more beach time) and headed out to what we hoped would be a shorter trip to our next destination. We opted to take the ferry over to shorten our drive time. Well, we did end up driving for a shorter period of time and on better roads. We drove about an hour from our hotel to the ferry. Then after getting off the ferry we drove for about 1.5 - 2 hrs. Sounds good compared to 5-5.5 hrs driving, right? Well it didn't shorten our overall trip by much, unfortunately. We arrived to the ferry about an hour in advance (maybe a little more, I can't remember) to make sure we would get on (as recommended). Then we wait and wait on a ferry in the heat. At times it wasn't that bad, if the wind was blowing just right... but other times it was pretty miserable for everyone. Then we finally get going and we have an hour long trip ahead of us. And it was still pretty warm. They have air conditioned areas inside the ferry but I think it might have been a couple degrees cooler than outside and without the benefit of the wind. So if you add the 2 hours on the ferry to the 3 hours we spent driving, it all about equaled out. Except being in the car is more comfortable and you don't have to watch out for shady people on the ferry... nor do you have to figure out when you're suppose to go down to get into your car to get it off the ferry (we didn't hear the announcement and Mike had to rush down at the last minute after cars were already getting off the ferry!). So it was definitely an experience and there were some nice views but I don't know that we would recommend doing it to get out of the drive.

We ate another lunch in the car after a quick run into a grocery store.

So here are some pictures of our ferry trip.

We arrived at our hotel, Hotel Costa Verde, after dark. Of course. We are shown to our room by the hotel staff member who was on a motorcycle (he drove and we followed).  We couldn't see much of the property but our room was spacious and even came with a small kitchen (too bad we hadn't stocked up on food to cook at our last grocery store trip!). We quickly unloaded our things and headed out to eat at one of the hotel's restaurants. We opted for the one across the street, La Cantina. Mike was grumpy ... long travel day and he was not enjoying the heat (we were eating outside as that is the only option we've ever seen in Costa Rica and the temps were probably in the upper 70s to lower 80s, after dark) but I was still happy to be on vacation. :) The kids were a bit tired but that wasn't out of the ordinary. We ate and it was okay food. Nothing memorable but nothing horrible.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel to change into our swim suits for a quick swim that was just down the path from our hotel. We couldn't see much but the hotel had nice signs that helped us figure out which way to go. The hotels are kind of stuck in the middle of lots of trees with paths to connect them but it is done in a way that you really feel like there isn't many people staying at the hotel. We felt quite secluded where we were at.

We swam for a short bit before I noticed something in the tree nearby. It was tough to see, but after staring at it for awhile I determined that it was a sloth hanging from the tree. Mike looked for a bit and agreed. Too bad we didn't have our camera... not that a picture would come out in the dark. :( Pretty amazing though - to see a sloth while you're swimming in the pool. And of course it was there the whole time... they don't move very much or very fast!

The next morning we ate breakfast at different restaurant on the property, Anaconda. I had the traditional breakfast w/ the pinto gallo, egg, fruit, and bread. I think the kids had pancakes. Not sure what Mike had. He was still grumpy... this morning he was grumpy about missing out on the hanging bridges in La Fortuna (which was back where the volcano was) because we didn't realize that the hanging bridges were there. Ah well. He eventually got over it. After a bit. That seemed like forever. ;o)

Anyway. After breakfast we went to check out the town, Quepos, and also scope out the Manuel Antonio National Park. It ended up raining which sent us back to our hotel to wait it out.

Here is our hotel balcony and our room.

And here is the amazing view we had from our balcony. A bit hazy because of the rain, but still pretty!

After the rain stopped, we headed back out to the park. We had a guide that approached us up once we were heading to the park (in the wrong direction, but he did help us to find the entrance) but we ditched him when his story ended up changing about who was going to be our guide, when we'd pay, etc. Ah well, we saved some money there. 

We didn't walk very far into the park before Isabella started whining about rocks and dirt getting into her shoes. So I knew right then the visit to the park wouldn't be very long. We ended up spotting a sloth that a guide was showing some other tourists. It was quite a ways up in the trees so it was hard to see & I don't think the kids ever did figure out where it was. I got a few pictures, but even in the pictures it is hard to make out. Here is one picture cropped with the sloth directly in the middle. You can see his long arm reaching up to the tree limb & his head is hanging upside down below that arm. The tour guide said she had a baby hanging on to her. We couldn't really see that.

We walked for a bit more with more whining and came upon this beach. We were hesitant to go down to it because Mike didn't want to swim but we knew the kids would. So we quickly changed in the bathroom area and headed down. This water was slightly calmer than the water at Nicoya Peninsula, but still rough enough that I had to keep the kids very close. I ended up taking them out one by one, holding them in a deeper part of the water so that they could get in deeper. A couple of times the undertow scared me so we didn't swim for too long. Mike got a picture of a raccoon on the beach that you will see in the bottom right corner. 

After the beach we changed and headed out of the park. We didn't spend very long in this park but the kids were whiny and not wanting to walk much. We were just thankful for the rainy weather that kept things cooled off during our hike. 

We went back to our room just in time for it to start raining again. We had some time before dinner so we all sat out on the balcony relaxing. And then we got to something pretty exciting, directly in front of (above?) our balcony! MONKEYS!! We were so excited to see them ... a huge pack (or whatever a large group of monkeys is called!) of them swinging from the trees, eating, scratching, and making noise. We think that these are Capuchin monkeys. Here is a little video of them. 

The pictures we got of them aren't very easy to see them in. The video is much better.

We watched them for quite awhile... they hung out in our tree for at least a half hour before they moved on to another area. We also think we heard howler monkeys at one point... and Jackson and I heard them again the next day. But we never did see any.

For dinner we headed over to El Avion which is a restaurant that has a plane in it's center. It is actually a plane from the Iran Contra affair. So an interesting little history lesson was spurred by this visit... mainly Mike filling me in on what I must not have retained from high school! Isabella thought it was pretty cool to go inside the plane (where they had the bar) and see her shirt in the black light. Jackson was totally wiped by the time the sun set and came to sit with me while we waited for our food. Before very long he was passed out asleep. Mike took him after a little while and he continued sleeping for the majority of our dinner. 

 After dinner we headed back to the hotel to get to bed. I think Jackson ended up eating some of his quesadilla in the hotel room because he missed out on eating his dinner at the restaurant. Isabella and Mike needed to get to sleep fairly quickly because they had an exciting canopy tour ahead of them and would need to be at the front desk to be picked up at 650am. Jackson and I planned to have a relaxing day at the hotel swimming, hiking, and just hanging out. 

More on that next time!