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Thursday August 23rd

Well we have been out of touch the last couple days, but not by choice. We found it very hard to get Internet connections while in Manuel Antonio park, so we just banked out thoughts until we could get connected consistantly...But...We have made it back home in one piece...as far as we can tell anyway. Before I get into that, I will bring you up to speed on the last couple days...the ones we banked.

After Monday's lounge fest...well almost. We ended up finding our new friends Scott and Kristen who were staying down the beach and spending the better part of the afternoon BSing with them...good call as the rain started. They met up with us for a couple beers at our little swingers pad, then took us off to check out their beach front place. It was very nice, I think it was called Hotel Verde Mar...but I am not completely sure. The funny thing was it was like entering a top secret facility. Security guards everywhere and a electronic fence to get to the beach...all reminders that we are still in Central America. From there we were off with them for a great dinner (could have been one of the best...) at Cafe' Melandro. I will just say that the Calamari was to die for...yea, that good. It was a nice little restaurant down the street in the town of Quepos...not a super great town, but the food...excellent. I think we were the only ones in the place...nice touch. From there we said our good byes as we would not be seeing them on Tuesday, it was hiking day...or so we thought.

We woke up early on Tuesday to the drip, drip, drip (more like pound, pound, pound) of rain...not a good start to our last adventure of this trip. We did some final packing (we planned on hiking around right up until check out time) and were off. We downed a quick breakfast and tried to do some quick Hotel planning for when we got back to San Jose later that day. Breakfast was good, but we had little success with a hotel, we would figure it out later. So I drug Jori down to the park...now I know I wrote about this earlier, but this place is a true tourist trap...shops lining the road, people whistling and point for you to park in their lot and use their tour guides...just a pure CF. We were on the verge of calling it quits and heading back to the hotel, but decided to push thru the rain and craziness and tour the park. As we parked, we were approached by a nice (yet young) guide named Karen...I agreed to hire her for a couple hours...almost to stop the chaos that was around us...We scrambled to what we thought was the park entrance, but were surprised to find a fleet of boats and a large body of water blocking our way. Turns out that at high tide, the entrance of the park is cut off by a small estuary...wow, do we have good timing. So we paid the boatman and he ferried us across where we entered the park...the rain continued. A little history on Manuel Antonio National park. It was formed ~35 years ago and is probably the most visited park in all of Costa Rica. It is very popular due to the beauty of it's beaches and the population of animals that thrive there. Another interesting point is that it is one of the smallest national parks in Costa Rica. The Park only lets in 600 people at a time, but that is still too many in my book, we were consistently stumbling over other tour groups and their guides the entire trip...oh well, the price to see monkeys. We walked around for about 2 1/2 hours, seeing many different animals, including: Black Iguanas, Jesus Christ Lizards, Cayman, about 3 different types of Bats, white face Monkeys, Two and Three toed sloths, a miniature viper of some kind, an Orb spider (crazy huge), as well as all kinds of trees and plants that were all very interesting. While we did get to see a large variety of animals, the parks trails were large and much traveled, taking some of the mystery out of the forest. It seemed more like a zoo...but that was my opinion. I am glad we did it, and our guide Karen did her best, but in the end, the rain and the high zoo factor made it kind of a dud...but then again, we where still in Costa Rica. I actually think the thought of returning home and the impending end to our trip had a tremendous amount to do with our ability to enjoy our last little tour, but I guess we knew that it did have to end some time...OK, enough with the sentimental...from here we were off to San Jose...good times...good times.

We left and traveled up the coast, passing the endless signs for developments and land for sale...I am pretty sure everything here is for sale...just have to ask. It took us about 3 hours of switch back mountain driving to get back to San Jose (well really Alajuela for all you Tico's out there). Remember that we had not gotten a hotel, rather we had agreed to "Wing it" once we got there. Well one thing to note about San Jose (and Alajuela) is that there is not really any street signs or maps for these towns...also, there is no "hotel row" type area that would lend itself to stopping in to ask about rates and rooms...nope, we drove around fro about two hours looking for a little hotel that we had been recommended to. We stopped and asked directions three times and were still thwarted...oh well...after our perceived defeat, we ended up just crashing at the airport Hampton Inn...Oh well, beggars cannot be choosers. After getting settled, we met up with some friends of friends who happened to be down in Costa Rica for a couple of months. Lara and Warren took us out to dinner...they also drove us by the little B&B we were looking for...yea, we drove by it about 3 times without seeing it...can you say tired. They were great and as a great side note, knew tons of info about buying property in Costa Rica...definitely have to remember their number...LOL... Anyway, we snuggled up in our hotel room and did a little relaxation before we had to get up to fly home...so sad.

We got up early and headed back to the airport...again...so sad. All of our flights went as smooth as ever, which was nice since we just wanted to get home. What a great trip, I would recommend it to anyone, with kids, without kids, young or old, these places were nothing but extraordinary. Jori and I will compile our best of and worst of lists, as well as some thing to make sure you bring and don't bring on you trip...

Cheers!

RB