Hi. I'm in Manuel Antonio.

Well, that was a drive and a half. As previously mentioned, despite Costa Rica being a small country, it is not quick to travel across. You’re travelling on narrow roads that aren’t in great shape in a lot of places and are going up and down through the mountains and it’s just a lot. Especially in rainy season. Which is the season we are currently in. So the drive down to Manuel Antonio took FOREVER. Oscar, our driver, wasn’t sure if the roads were even going to be open in some places. Happily, the roads were open so we didn’t have to backtrack. Unhappily, there were a few times I thought we wouldn’t be able to get through because it was so tough going. We hit some rain, of course, including pretty much torrential downpours as we finally arrived at our hotel.

Luckily, we had a stop for a chocolate tour part way through. And it wasn’t pouring rain for that! We had learned much of what we heard already at our farm tour but we got to see lots of tiny frogs, participate in making some chocolate and sampling it in several different stages, including a delicious beverage stage. Of course, I loaded up on the chocolate, though where we went, they don’t manufacture their own bars, they are more of an education centre and work with families in the area with their cacao growing. But it was very interesting seeing all the tiny flowers on the cacao plant that will turn into flowers and seeing the cacao beans in their varying stages.

Once we finally made it to our hotel (in the pouring rain, which did not bode well for the major hike planned the next day. It also pretty much forced us into the hotel restaurant for dinner, which turned out to bode VERY WELL because I had a palm fruit pasta that was sort of like an Alfredo but somehow even more delicious. We’re fairly far from Manuel Antonio so it’s a good thing the restaurant is good so that we don’t have to travel far for dinner. Breakfast was also quite delicious and happily, the rain had stopped and we were able to enjoy an incredible view from the restaurant, including watching 2 scarlet macaws sweep by in front of us. The hotel also hosts a macaw sanctuary so while I didn’t have my camera at the ready, there’s a good chance of seeing them again while we’re here.

We weren’t entirely sure if our big hike was going to end up cancelled or not - with the heavy rain, things have been washed out and are so wet. But, it went forward! And wow, it was a really big challenge, particularly for someone with short little legs, like me. Our Coastal Challenge started in Quepos, the town not far from Manuel Antonio, at the market where we picked out a delicious mango for a mid-hike snack. Then, we started out from town, along the coast, seeing a bit of town and then starting to head upwards into the hills. And I got to see my THIRD type of monkey, the spider monkey. They were running and playing in the trees and were so adorable. I did ask very politely but none of them wanted to relocate to Canada to be my pet. They do move pretty quickly so I now have a lot of photos of spider monkey butts. Soon after the spider monkeys, we headed into the real challenge-y part of the hike. We were into the forest with steep climbs and drops and paths that had washed out from the rain. At one point, our guide had to pull a massive knife out of his pack and essentially chop down a tree so we could keep going. At another point, he pulled out a rope so that I could have something to hold on to as I tried to get down one of the drops. There were a lot of points where ropes had been fastened into the trail, so needing some help wasn’t unexpected but there were no built in ropes at this point. We got to see a number of little beaches as we hiked along the coast and FINALLY saw a sloth when we were stopped for a water break. Poor sloth was a little waterlogged. Later, we realised it was a momma sloth and a baby sloth! That was an exciting discovery. The challenge was absolutely a challenge - and much harder than I expected it to be and I was pretty muddy by the end. But we did it and then I had DELICIOUS mahi mahi for dinner so totally worth it.

Our final adventure in Costa Rica was another guided nature walk in Manual Antonio National Park. We had an early start with our guide, and were expecting rain again for the day, which absolutely happened. At the start, things were in good shape. We saw lots of lovely animals, including a ground wood nib hummingbird, tree crabs, glass frogs, green anole lizard, a red skimmer dragonfly, a common tent bat and two basilisks - a helmet headed basilisk. There was also another snake in there but I can’t remember what it’s called other than it kills about 5 people a year. And another sloth! Also a little damp from the rain so couldn’t see too much at all but hey, still saw her. This was a three-toed sloth and after reviewing the photos from the coastal challenge sloth, the guide declared her a four-toed sloth so I got to see both kinds! We’re also starting to get pretty good at taking photos through a telescope so we’ve got some good ones of the small animals we saw from far off today, which makes me very happy. The original plan had been to stay in the park and have some beach time but that was not in the cards since the rain had started again. Instead, we headed back to the hotel and waited for the rain to clear up a bit before taking the shuttle back down to Manuel Antonio for some lunch at a little food truck that’s run out of an old school bus - fish tacos for the win! And then we went for drinks where I found my FINAL MONKEY! The capuchins. And they are little assholes. They didn’t hesitate at all to come right up into the restaurant, where staff had to shoo them away. So they just went onto the next one. I think they would have eaten one woman’s lunch if she hadn’t picked it up and moved. They are super fast so it was hard to get a good picture but at last, my monkey quartet is complete.