February 18, 1997 Tuesday

We left about 8:30 for Manuel Antonio National Park today, which was about 70 km away. We first stopped in Jaco for breakfast. I had scrambled eggs and "Pinto", which is local staple made of a mixture of rice and beans. I wasn't too thrilled with it. There was a lizard called Ctenosaur, apparently edible, watching us eat. We then headed for the park after that. The road was twisty and full of huge potholes, unpaved sections, and narrow bridges. After about 1.5 hours, we passed a few km of road lined with palm tree plantations. The road there was almost as good as the US roads, but then it turned ugly again with holes everywhere.

We passed the town of Quepos and then started climbing up a winding hill toward the park. This winding road was filled with small (20 rooms max) hotels and restaurants catering to the park going crowd and the "dry" season tourists. We then headed toward the park and parked right outside of the entrance. A little kid, probably about 8 years old, was to "guard" the car for us. I think they pretty much took over an area that's probably public parking, but he was speaking like he's been doing this for a while. He charged us 500 colones, which according to Fabio is kinda high ($2.50 US). We ate before entering the park and I had a dish called "Arroz con Pollo" (Rice with Chicken). It's another local staple but I thought it tasted a lot liked Chinese fried rice. The foods are generally cheap in Costa Rica: for under $5 you can get a nice decent meal.

We had to cross this small steam that flowed into a salt marsh to get to the park entrance. There wasn't anything of interest I saw at the Mangrove marsh except some generic looking school of minnows. Fabio only had to pay 200 colones ($1US) to get in because he's a local, and I had to pay $1595 colones ($8) to get in. We stopped by the "First Beach" which is Playa Espadilla Sur. It had rough waves and a scattering of Gringos trying to get a tan. The sun felt very strong on my skin and Fabio already burnt his arm while driving. We then hiked to the second beach, Playa Manuel Antonio, which is more like a cove with a couple of snorkelers in the water. We continued on for 2 more km and headed for Playa Escondido. On the way, we saw a dark colored monkey, which was probably a Howler Monkey.

We also saw a group of white-faced monkeys, squirrel monkeys, and spider monkeys. The signs specifically said not to feed the monkeys, but we came upon a group of tourists feeding them bananas. At least they weren't feeding them potato chips or something like that. The third beach was full of big rocks and we didn't stay too long before heading back. The jungle trails were like the Amazon, except a lot drier and no mosquitoes. I stopped by a stream to examine the critters for about 5 minutes and mosquitoes didn't attack me at all. It was the same types of unidentified shrimps and gobies in the streams.

We returned to the car after that (3:00) and headed to the beach. We went swimming after that, then headed back to the car at about 5 and went to a restaurant. The food was good, I got Arroz con Maracona (Rice with Shrimp) and Heart of Palm Salad. Fabio said there were probably 10 times more people there than normal in the San Antonio area - maybe because it was a Tuesday. That was it for the day. We drove back to Punta Leona.

  February 19, 1997 Wednesday

The day started pretty late. We didn't leave the condo until 10:30. We headed for a waterfall that's right outside of the Carara National Park. It was about a 8-km drive up hill to the waterfall through a scenic dirt road off the main road. The road wound and twisted around the mountain with secondary growth vegetation on one side and what appeared to be a virgin tropical dry forest on the other side. We got stopped by a guy on a moped handing out brochures about "his" trail to the waterfall, which is a lot closer, "less than 5 minutes away". We then drove on and stopped by a booth manned by a French Canadian guy who apparently is the owner of the longer trail. He explained that the other guy's trail is to the top of the waterfall while his is to the bottom, but it's a 45-minute hike. We agreed to go on his trail for 1500 colones each. We both thought a longer hike would be good and Fabio didn't like the other guy's business practices.

The owner briefed us on the trails and gave us walking sticks and off we went. The first km of the trail was mostly a steep downhill hike. We came across a broken bridge with a sign on it that said "Bridge Biery Bad, P On Rait". At first, I thought it was in some other language but Fabio deciphered it as "Bridge Very Bad, Pass On Right". There was a group of French Canadian tourists in front of us and those were the only mammals I saw during the whole waterfall trip. After about 1/2 hour, we veered off a different trail to see if we could look at the "natural pools". The natural pools were just small pools of water trapped by the river rocks.

I ventured out into the river on rocks and looked around to see if I could see anything living. The only things I saw were the same old gobies and shrimps. Fabio and I hung out for a while and took some pictures before proceeding to the waterfall. The waterfall, was very tall and refreshing, but I didn't feel like getting into the pool right under it for some reason. Nobody else went into the pool either. We saw the first group of the F-Canadians and also the couple at the waterfall. Fabio and I stopped and ate lunch here - ham sandwiches. The bread tasted like cardboard and I could barely finish one. I think it took Fabio an hour to eat both sandwiches and drink most of our water. We started climbing back up a little after 2:00, and halfway through, we finished the water. I only had a few more drops after the waterfall so I was parched. By the time we reach the last km away from the hut, both of us were thinking about the cool big malls in the northeast and Hagaan Dazs Ice Cream. We passed several more hikers on the way and they were silly enough to wear aqua shoes instead of hiking boots for the hike. I didn't think they would fare too well on the climb back. They were French Canadians also.

After we got back to Punta Leona, nothing else really interesting happened for the rest of the day, except there was a big Iguana right below the balcony watching us. I was thinking about going snorkeling again, but I exhaustion caught up to me because I passed out sleeping at about 5 and didn't get up til 6:30. We had dinner at a restaurant down at the main community and I had the exact same dishes/salad as last night at Manual Antonio, and I thought the dinner here was better. The palm salad, shrimp with rice, and 2 glasses of fresh Papaya Juice with Milk cost only about $10. I saw a cat walking under the tables begging for food, and I thought of Kitty and I really missed him. After dinner, I sat out on the balcony and listened to the waves in the night breeze again for the rest of the night.