Roadtrip to Manuel Antonio

Hola amigos!

I’m back with a new blogpost for you guys. Once again the three of us (Charlotte,Lina & myself) have managed to travel to a new destination. This time we made it to Manuel Antonio, a beachtown on the pacific coast with one of Costa Rica’s most famous Nationalparks! We took off work for Monday because Tuesday was labor day, so we could have a longer weekend and more time for this trip.  After work on friday we met up in San Jose and went to a Chinese place for dinner, where I ate a really bad Chop Suey (actually I wouldn’t even call it Chop Suey). Lina managed to buy the bus tickets for us as she arrived earlier. We left at 9am the next morning and we had a pretty smooth ride to Manuel Antonio, about 4 hours. We checked in at our hostel (Millenium Hostel) and decided to go to the beach right away. Okay so now comes the time for one of my amazing fails that seem to happen from time to time.. The waves were really wild and strong, but I said I’ll go in first and check out the situation. It was not really a sandy beach so there were many rocks..  I went in very slowly because I was walking on rocks right, and the water was maybe up to my knees – then this big wave came but I was like c’mon I’m gonna stand strong – and to be honest the wave didn’t look that scary, but it was soo strong that it knocked me down, and not just my body but my bathing suit as well. There you have it. I was now laying on spikey rocks  covering my vagina and trying to adjust my bathing suit, when another wave knocks me over and I’m half naked again. By now about 8 other people on the beach are starring at me and I somehow manage to get up and my two friends are grinning at me. I had to laught too though, it was just an epic fail. The rest of the afternoon we hung out by the Hostel’s pool (big bonus) and in the evening we literally hiked to the ATM that was 2km away, and then treated ourselves at a pizza place (El Wagon) on the way back. On Sunday we went to the Nationalpark which was right in front of our hostel,we had to pay about 16$/13 to get in. We started walking around some trails and I took a bunch of photos with my camera. We saw some monkeys, lots of lizzards and iguanas, tucans, racoons and sloths. Besides wildlife we also saw stunning scenery, beautiful beaches with rocky cliffs and so much green fauna and flora! Costa Rica is an extremly green country, everywhere you look it’s green, and I love it. The nature here is unbelievably gorgeous. We enjoyed the day in the park a lot, and we even managed to swim in a relatively calm bay without getting naked. In the evening we cooked pasta and enjoyed some craft beer by the bonfire in our Hostel. We all wanted to try to save money so we decided to only eat out once and cook the rest of the days. On Monday we had pancakes for breakfast and afterwards we took the bus towards Quepos town. But we got out early because we wanted to go to Playa Biesanz. As we walked down the hills some guys offered us a ride and of course we didn’t say no! The beach was kind of crowded but not extremely. It was a beautfiul bay and perfectly calm, so we enjoyed swimming there – also without getting naked!  Unfortunately a storm was coming towards us so we decided to leave and we managed to hitchhike again. Lina took the bus back to Manuel Antonio and Charlotte and I wanted to go and buy our bus tickets for the next day (you can only buy them at the bus station in Quepos). We eventually hitchhiked a 3rd time, towards Quepos as I randomly pointed my thumb out as we waited for the bus. It’s definitely worth trying! It rained for rest of the day, so we spent our time doing yoga, reading and watching Netflix. On Tuesday morning we had smoothies for breakfast and chilled by the pool for the last time, then we checked out some souvenir shops and ate some ice cream. As it was time to go Lina realised that she had accidentally thrown her bus ticket away hahaha. So the Hostel staff was fishing in the trash but luckily they found it right away! ‘Glück im Unglück’ – ‘blessing in disguise’. We took the bus at 1pm and got home around 7ish. We had an amazing time in Manuel Antonio and I can definitely recommend it. It is indeed very touristy but I think the Nationalpark is totally worth it. Uploading photos soon!

Thanks for reading Mae! (costa rican slang for bro/dude)

//Olivia