manuel antonio

drive to the beach
We felt the climate change as we came down from the mountain and headed through villages and little towns to the pacific coast. Who am I kidding? I was mostly sleeping.

Until we got to this point and Mike stopped. We wondered, why is everyone pulling off the side of the road and walking along this overpass?


...and looking in this muddy river...

Crocodiles!

Can you see them? Sometimes it's good to follow the crowd. If we hadn't, we would have missed out on the crocs.


hotel verde mar
This was my favorite place to stay. No restaurant or breakfast, but so much tropical charm.


We loved having a little kitchenette. Somehow it reminded me of college even though we never lived anywhere quite so groovy at BYU.


Our favorite thing about this beach town is the way they left a strip of jungly forest between the hotels and the beach. When you are on the beach, you don't see a strip of hotels. You see trees. This is the view from our hotel. There is a glimpse of bright blue ocean through the trees.





manuel antonio
This forested park was just a quarter mile down the road from our hotel. We saw a sloth almost as soon as we entered the park, then another, then a pair of toucans, and a little golden monkey. It wasn't that easy to see the wildlife, though. They are up high in the thick canopy. We spent a lot of time craning our necks in the unbearable heat and humidity. This is the trail we hiked.


Luckily there were three beautiful, nearly empty beaches to cool off in. Toward the middle of the park we entered the white-faced monkey zone. As we relaxed in the shade and in the water, we had to keep one eye on our backpacks because of the mischievous little critters.



A highlight of the day was making some new friends, Paul and Sarah, to walk around with. They took our picture at the monkey beach.


Here is one of the few iguanas we saw lounging on the beach.


And some more beach pictures.



I think I was happiest walking along the beach at sunset. And running down for one last plunge in the warm waves. Heaven! Thanks for the wonderful trip, Mike!