We arrived at Manuel Antonio, the town attached to the National Park of the same name, after another bad taxi experience in San José.  We had to pass through, since we were travelling from the Caribbean to the Pacific Coast.  There are separate bus terminals, though they aren´t too far from one another.  The driver not only had a ridiculously fast meter, but tried a scam where he put me on the phone with the supposed bus company, telling me we missed the last bus and should have the taxi driver take us to the next town, where we could catch up to it.  RIGHT.  First of all, it was only 11 am, and we had checked the schedule beforehand.  Second, we knew that even without this taxi´s very special meter, it was probably at least a $20 ride.  We paid what the meter said and got out on the spot.  It was getting hard to keep a good attitude.

Manuel Antonio, or more specifically Anita Kim, who runs the Hotel Coco Beach there, helped change that.  She has lived in Costa Rica for 30 years, having arrived alone from Korea.  Anita doesn´t overcharge.  She earns enough to keep things afloat in these hard times, and makes guests feel at home.  She always has a smile, and is full of good advice. (She thinks we should weather the US economic crisis out in Alaska, which, in her opinion shouldn´t be affected.) She even lowered the price we paid for our room the last couple of days we were there (long story).

We ended up staying longer than we had planned, and had great walks in the national park.  Manuel Antonio is a Pacific mix of rainforest, white sand beaches and reef.  There were hermit and other crabs, squirrel monkeys, titi monkeys, howlers, raccoons, sloths (two and three-toed), agouti, endless birds and butterflies, and on and on.  Animals in Costa Rica generally are quite easy to spot, so we opted to go without the $20 per person guide, and just looked up when it looked like another group had spotted something (cheating?).

The beaches within the park were close to perfect.  Our only issue was a pair of raccoons who must have smelled the remains of our lunch in the backpack while we were taking a swim.  They didn´t get away with anything, but left everything covered with sand and racoon prints.  Our other close encounter was earlier in the morning, when a troupe of white faced monkeys emerged almost right in front of us on the trail around Cathedral Point.  They crossed the path overhead and at ground level, heading to a small valley.  It didn´t take long to see what they were up to, as a raccoon kept trying to get down the hill, only to be forced to retreat by the alpha monkey and one of his henchmen.  We spent a half hour or so there, just watching.  A mother and baby were part of the group as well…cute cute cute.

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