Manuel Antonio, I Love You

For the first weekend where USAC did not have a planned trip, five other girls and myself decided to venture off to one of the most popular places in Costa Rica, Manuel Antonio. It was super easy and cheap to get there from Puntarenas. It only cost about $3 and the bus ride was 3 hours to Quepos. When we arrived in Quepos, we took a cab to our hostel. We stayed at Vista Serena, where we lived in the first floor of a house. We had two bedrooms, a living room with a TV, and a kitchen all to ourselves. Right outside of our hostel was a stunning view of the famous beaches of Manuel Antonio. After an afternoon full of traveling, we were eager to go to dinner and relax. The hostel had hot water unlike our home-stays, which we were incredibly thankful for.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant called, “Pirate Sushi,” and quickly learned how American-friendly Manuel Antonio is. All of the waiters spoke English, the menu was in English, and they had several familiar items on their menu like hot dogs, burgers, and chocolate cake. That evening, we went to Bar Latino, where they had Ladies’ Night, which is a popular thing on Friday nights in Manuel Antonio. There were some Ticos at the bar, but mostly gringos. The next day, we went to Manuel Antonio National Park. My friend Jessi and I, decided to shell out some extra money to get a professional tour guide to take us through the forest. It was the best $30 I have ever spent. His name was Gustavo, and he could spot a dragonfly on a leaf miles away. He had a telescope that he used to let us see every little organism in the forest and used it to take pictures for us. We saw white-faced monkeys, squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, spiders, sloths, tons of different insects, crocodiles  and rainforest crabs. They had really amazing beaches within the park as well, but we were too tired to go swimming. Hiking is an exhausting activity. After lunch we hung out at the beach for a little bit but it was so rocky we did not stay long. It was so strange being in a place where everyone spoke English and everything was written in English after being used to speaking broken Spanish in Puntarenas to try and order a drink. We spent our last morning there at the beach and had an iced coffee since we had been suffering from Starbucks withdrawals.