Manuel Antonio

From Monteverde to Manuel Antonio, 1 october
On our way to Manuel Antonio we pass the Tárcoles River. This river is known for its crocodiles. We are very lucky and count seventeen crocs in the water below us. In the past tourists were assaulted here by armed people. But now there is a police post on the bridge, so that would have got something to do with that.

Tourism is so low at the moment that we are going to try to negotiate about hotel prizes. At the first hotel in Quepos we ask about the price of a room. The counter-question is: "What do you want to spend?" We drive around a bit more and decide to take an apartment in Condominium Villas Mymosa.

The apartment is ridiculously large. We have gotten so much off of the price that the price-quality ratio is very good. It consists of one large room on two levels. Each level has a bed. Next to that there is a kitchen, a television (which is a rarity in Costa Rica's hotels) and a large bathroom. At the front there is a terrace overlooking the pool and at the back there is a large balcony with dining table and hammock.

Only the locks are weird. We think we unlock the balcony door and sit outside for a drink. After a while we decide to go to Quepos. Than it appears that we cannot open the door anymore and we are stuck on the balcony. The disadvantage of this quit season is that there is nobody that can help us. After shouting for a very long time a man appears to unlock the door for us. We think it is a rather funny situation but we apparently disturbed this man in important activities since he is very cranky.

Our clothes are all dirty now and the smell from our bags is rather bad. And since we have to go flying in a couple of days we decide to do the laundry. Soon we find out that the laundry is done by others here. But I am so stubborn that I would like to do as much myself as possible. Why I'm doing that an apocalyptic rain storms breaks out. It only takes five minutes but so much water comes down that the deep gutters between the sidewalk and the road are completely flooded within a minute.

In search for a restaurant it appears that everything is very expensive around here, in contrast to other parts of Costa Rica. For one course you pay as much as we paid for the whole restaurant bill before.

We eat in the restaurant of El Mono Azul. They have a project: “Kids saving the rainforest”, in which children help to keep the rainforest. One of the things they do is to shelter orphaned baby animals and put them back later. The children take care of these animals. At the moment they have to baby sloths in some kind of open cage in the lobby. It is very cute. There are trees in the cage with hammocks and stuffed animal toys that must represent mummy. The two little sloths lay to sleep against a huge cuddly dog. It is a pity, but understandable that we cannot pet them.

Stay in Manuel Antonio, 2 october
We have just woken up in our villa Mymosa and right now I am making breakfast with a boiled egg and toast. Meanwhile I have to think back on our breakfast at the Arenal Observatory lodge. One could make their own toast there in some kind of toast making machine. You had to put your slice of bread inside. Then this went back on some kind of assembly line, where it fell down on another assembly line, that lead the by now toasted slice outside again. Very advanced. But my slice got caught and didn't fell on the lower assembly line and by the heat became blacker and blacker and finally set on fire. The flames burst from the machine. After a lot of calling in the direction of the kitchen the alarmed cook came to rescue the machine.

After breakfast we go to National Park Manuel Antonio. Now that we have been used to so much quiet we find this park busy, although the amount of visitors isn't 10% of days in high season. In the first instance we find it irritating that there are "so many" people. But soon we see the advantage because when a group of people stares in a tree than there is something in it.

In the first instance we see "just" a couple of agouties and lots of iguanas while this park is famous for its large amount of not so shy animals. But near the picnic site at the beach hangs a sloth perfectly in view. It tries to climb from one tree to another. That goes very nimble....for a sloth. Finally he doesn't reach his goal and climbs back into the top of tree.

Other animals we see are coatis, lots of colorful crabs and some weird white monkeys on two legs.

That is the drawback of such a touristy park like Manuel Antonio. Here walk people through the jungle in their bikini and than even those slutty types. One wore a "nice" modern white bikini with a "trendy" white cowboy hat on her head, matching flip-flops and matching macho.

Fortunately we see a lot of other animals too. During high season a lot of them shape their course for the picnic site, but apparently they know that this is low season. Only one female raccoon shows up, that suddenly deprives a tourist from its sandwich.

We ask the guides if they know where the famous squirrel monkeys are but no-one saw them today. We want to end our trip and walk out the park through the rear-exit. And there we see the little monkeys that make Manuel Antonio famous. They move around day and night so they are hard to trace. But we see them! They are eating berries on the ends of the branches, so we can see them clearly. After that they swing away through the forest. They make huge jumps from tree to tree, especially for such small monkeys. And sometimes it goes wrong. They fall down a couple of branches. But never to the floor, at least not that we see.

Stay in Manuel Antonio, 3 october
Our last full day in Costa Rica. It is a good thing that we leave tomorrow since our bathroom is slowly turning into a swimming pool and they can only fix the leaking boiler tomorrow. Well, it's their apartment, not ours but a lot of the cupboards will be damaged tomorrow.

We don't feel like walking ourselves into a sweat again in a rainforest. Besides we saw it all so we take the car and drive to Palmar Sur. We try to find the swamp area near the Rio Sierpe but cannot find it. We keep on driving through endless nut plantations so finally we turn around.

We decide to eat again at El Mono Azul since it was good the last time and we really like to see the baby sloths again. When we arrive thy are sleeping in a tree.

During diner we notice that they make fruit juice for other guests by using a blender. We would like to see how they do that so we can copy that back home. Those juices are so good. That is why we ask if we can watch how they make them. We are invited into the kitchen. The cook clearly appreciates our interest very much and let us taste all kinds of variances.

To Miami, 4 october
The drive to San Jose takes much longer than expected. Fortunately we have plenty of time so we don't need to worry.

Finally we still arrive more than three hours before the flight leaves but that is absolutely not necessary. The safety measures are so elaborate here that it is nice to be early though. This prevents standing in a long waiting line.

Before we can step in the line for the check in desk we have to go through baggage check first. In addition we have to open every bag and suitcase and gloved hands go through all our stuff. And everybody can watch.
But since we are early this doesn't take long and we have plenty of time left. San Jose has one of those international airports where nothing is going on. We decide to go back outside to sit in the sun. In search for a seat we end up at what probably is the back entrance of the airport.

After a while more and more guards and a camera crew arrive. The spot where we sit is also guarded and we ask the guard if a VIP will come. He confirms this and says a name that we don't know. Hans thinks immediately of a soccer player when he hears the word VIP, but the man says: “No, el presidente.” Even more guards show up and no-one may enter this area anymore. But for some reason we are not send away.

As after a while a gray car without license plates drives up, we are even allowed to get closer for a better view. We stand, as the only spectators, on a balcony, eye to eye with the president, who is being interviewed for camera and attract the special attention of his bodyguards. One of them observes us uninterrupted for fifteen minutes and by his hidden microphone he asks the guard who stands next to us, who we are. If the president goes inside it is time for us to go the plane.

On the way we have to open our hand baggage twice, one of them already inside the ramp. Beside the x-ray control, the hand baggage is thus checked three times by hand. Mine is of course quit striking since it is filled with three cameras, lenses, lots of film and a lot of electrical wire. At 11.30 PM we land at Miami.

We have to taxi for fifteen (!) minutes before we arrive at the gate. We are the only Dutch people that go of the plane here. No-one else uses the possibility to make a free stop-over in Florida. One way or the other we manage this time to be so late at the baggage belt that it has stopped with our bags lonely on the side.

The airport is completely deserted but shuttle busses are still present and one brings us to Alamo. The only convertible has just arrived and is now in the carwash. (How is that possible since we should have arrived about two hours earlier?) Finally we arrive at our hotel at one o'clock at night.

Next: Florida