Best beach by far - clearest

January 28:  91  degrees

Today, we get up early to go to Manuel Antonio National Park.  We hear that our chances of seeing a lot of wildlife is much greater in the morning.  Since we opted for a tour guide, they came to pick us up from the hostel.

The tour guides are equipped with some high-powered telescopes and it seems like most things are only visible this way.  As a matter of fact, halfway through the tour, we are convinced that they are placing slides of animals in front of the telescope before we look in.

Sleepy sloth

As soon as we walk into the park, the guide sets up and spots an animal that is half iguana, half snake (Mandy doesn't believe that this is true -- she's trying to tell me it was just a baby iguana -- but I know what he said). I try hard to see it with my naked eye but I cannot.  We make our way into the park and it feels much like Disneyland.  It is crowded with tourists and we are carefully having to walk around each other to stay with our group.  We make our way down the path and we are able to see a deer, spiders, bats, monkeys, insects and sloths.  It really was a cool experience.

Tucan sighting

The path ends at one of a few beaches that are part of the national park.  As a group, we stop to have snacks and drinks as we try to fight off the monkeys and raccoons for our food.  A good tip that we might be able to take home was to deter a raccoon by kicking up sand in its face.  This was before we realized that sand is not so readily available in our backyard in Ohio.  Will keep the tip though.

Our trail snack attracting monkeys and raccoons  

Upon finishing up the tour, we are allowed to stay at one of the beaches if we wish.  Our tour guide recommends the last beach before exiting the park.  We soon find out why.

There was only one other couple at this beach and the water is the clearest I have seen so far in Costa Rica.  We were a little hesitant to get into this water because the waves were big, the tide high and we weren't sure of any rip tides.  We figured the tour guide wouldn't have recommended it if it weren't ok.  Right?

We get into the water by a steep entrance from the sand.  Once we were in, we were in for quite a ride!  The waves were high and we could feel a pull from both in front and behind us.  But the pull wasn't strong and it actually was quite safe for a swim.  We were getting a little thrashed around and loving it.  An older couple joined us later and the woman got stuck in the waves on shore.  Just as soon one pushed her over, another one came crashing, not allowing her to get her footing.  She began to laugh either hysterically or nervously.  Nonetheless, you can tell she was having fun.  We all were.

Later, we return to our hostel and meet a couple that moved into the bedroom next door.  We will be sharing our kitchen and bathroom with them.  Katrina and David are a couple in their early 30s traveling from Quebec.  It didn't take long for the chemistry amongst us to show, and before you knew it, we were eating Wanda's Pierogies, the couple was sharing quesadillas Katrina made, and we were drinking together.  Our chats and cheer lasted about 6 hours that night.  I think we made some new friends.