Day 15 - Manuel Antonio

We ate the free breakfast or gallo pinto and eggs at the hotel and then drove into the village so we could hike in the national park. We drove past the scammers trying to get people to pay to park of the street and found an empty space much closer to the entrance. We learned that the park entrance had changed - no longer do people have to wade or take a boat across the estuary. We paid the entrance fee of $10 each and started own one of the main paths. Along the main trail we found ourselves behind a loud group of Americans loudly talking about their kids baseball teams or the SUV's they were going to buy their kids for x-mas - I thought it was incredibly rude to have a loud conversation in a national park and how did they expect to see any wildlife while carrying on that way? At the first chance we took a side trail where we found ourselves alone with peace and quiet. Once off the main trail we saw lots of monkeys and other wildlife





The trail eventually led us to a beach were we did some swimming but there were a lot of people around so we headed out after a while and drove back to the hotel for a dip in the pool.

Since our dinner the previous evening at the hotel restaurant was a bit disappointing we drove into Quepos to find somewhere to eat. We parked the car and walked around a bit finally deciding on El Gran Escape where we had some cocktails followed by some pretty good burgers.

Day 14 - Drive to Manuel Antonio

After waking up we showered and got packed. Walked over to Carolina's for a good breakfast and then back to the hotel to say goodbye to Debbie. Unfortunately Pablo was still asleep so we couldn't say goodbye to him but we have his email so we can stay in touch. We were on the road at 9:30am and arrived in Quepos at 2pm. After filling up the car we drove to La Colina where we had stayed on our 2005 trip. After getting settled in our room was went out in search of finding a place to drink some beers and eat lunch. We drove into Manuel Antonio village where we saw people in "official" looking parking uniforms trying to direct people into free parking spaces on the street and then charging them to park there. We ignored them and kept on driving finding plenty of free parking further down the road. We walked around for a bit getting tired of people hassling us to buy crappy souvenirs or trying to be too "helpful". We got back in the car are drove to El Avion where we had some really cold beer served in frozen mugs along with some good, but expensive, nachos.



We went back to the hotel and went to the bar area but the pool for a few beers. While there I met a guy from Canada who had been living in Manuel Antonio for 2 years but had never traveled anywhere else in Costa Rica! We were getting hungry so we ordered some sandwiches from the hotel restaurant which were good but only came with a few frech fries. We were still hungry so we took a drive into Quepos where i got some friend chicken and Kat got an ice cream before heading back to the hotel to watch some TV in our room before gonig to sleep.