Las Playas de Costa Rica

Two weekends ago I explored the beaches of Manual Antonio - 90 miles Southwest of the capital. In addition to the place being beautiful to the eye, it is also where our base camp used to be. Working here at CRROBS, I have the opportunity to stay in the beach bungalo in Manual Antonio for free, a very nice luxury.

After a 5 hour bus ride to go 90 miles (lots of traffic, curvy roads) and a hand-written map of how to get there, I made my way to the "casita" or little house. I arrived to the community in which our "casita" is and was unfortunately misguided by my taxi driver. Pitch black, with a had-written map of where I needed to be, I was sure I found the right bungalo. I cruised up the stairs to the balconey, saw a women inside (we have a women who tends the casita at all times), and continued to get her attention. I received an extremely frightened reaction, a reaction of - who the hell are you and why are you on my balcony? I quickly realized that I was not in the right place. The women ended up helping me find the right house and everything was fine, just a rough start...

I awoke the next morning and made my way to the beautiful Parque Nacional Manual Antonio - a wildlife reserve with a great deal of exotic animals and pristine beaches. I walked alone in the park for quite some time, explored just about all of the trails and beaches in the park (I paid $10USD to get in so I had to make it worth it). View the video to see what I stumbled upon.

This is where I ate breakfast, the equivalent of what they call a "Soda" or little restaurant, this one happens to be on the beach. 

Here is a photo of Playa Manual Antonio - very warm water. 

Monkey in the trees near the beach. 

The following day in Manual Antonio I walked along the beach and was unable to find surf. It was time to return to Quepos to catch my bus back to San José so I took a local bus and to my surprise a huge crowd had gathered around near the bus station to watch little kids beat each other up boxing. It was a really cool experience to see the boxing matches go on (there were 13), and interesting to interact with the several people watching the matches unfold. They continued on even after it was dark and called all of those people with cars to turn on their lights so the boxers could fight.