Costa Rica Day 19(continued) 20 and 21
This is a blog post from this previous weekend.
Friday after class, we loaded our raggedy bus and headed towards one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Seriously.. I’m not making that up. Manuel Antonio has been placed on many of the “Best Beaches to See” lists. And lucky me, got to spend the entire weekend there. But lets back track for a second… Raggedy bus. I shall explain this statement. When I use the term “raggedy bus” this is what I mean… a tourist bus, which is smaller than a charter bus [and no bathroom or tvs] but bigger than a short bus. Our bus has 24 seats… but wait… we have 26 people. Exactly my point when I call it raggedy. Instead of upgrading to another bus, of course West Georgia decides that we will squeeze everyone on 1 bus with our luggage for all the weekend excursions. So yet again another weekend, we squeezed 2 more people than normal on the bus… and a 4 hour bus ride with 2 extra passengers makes for an extremely cramped ride.
If we were going anywhere else this weekend, I probably would not have been too happy when that raggedy bus pulled up at the school… but knowing that the sooner I got on that bus and left town, the sooner I would be able to put my feet in the Pacific Ocean for the first time! We arrived at the beach a little before 6 [Costa Rican time]. I was immediately impressed with the choice for our hotel. Well… at least it looked like a nicer place this time. My weekend-mates [roommates for the weekend] and I received our key and we were off to check out our room. 2 double size beds, dresser, and air conditioner. Typical American-ized hotel. Finally. This place was awesome. The scenery was beautiful and the restaurant, pool, and bar area were magnificent. So Friday night was spent eating dinner at a lovely little place close to the beach. Backpacker’s Paradise. It was a very cute, local restaurant that served great burgers and drinks. We spent the majority of the night there just hanging out and talking. After wards, we walked back to our hotel and hung out by the pool for a little while. It rained pretty much all night on Friday so we decided to call it an early night so we could be up for the beach in the morning.
Saturday. Breakfast was at 8am and we left for our hike to the beach at 9am. Manuel Antonio is a national park, therefore, it’s a private beach. $$$ to access their beautiful beaches. Luckily for us, the price was included in our overall trip so we didn’t have to pay when we got there. We received our passes and were off on about a mile hike through another rainforest. Something I have observed in the 3 weeks of living here… if you have seen one rainforest, you’ve seen them all. Finally, at the end of our hike, the trail led to the beautiful beautiful sandy beaches of Manuel Antonio Park. And like I have said before, not even pictures will do this place justice. I couldn’t even walk any farther when I saw it for the first time. I wasn’t even sure if it was real life… all I really knew at that moment was that it felt like I walked right into a scene from a post card. Absolutely amazing. And here’s a comment to all the people that think “beaches are beaches.. it doesn’t matter where you go” –you my friends, are completely wrong. You have truly never scene the beauty of a beach until you stand in Pacific Ocean, surrounded by beautiful crystal blue water, and watch as the water crashes onto the rocks of the surrounding mountains. Hands down the most beautiful thing I have ever seen… needless to say, our slogan for the weekend quickly became “this is not a postcard.. this is real life”. And I can’t think of another better way to describe it. I wasn’t looking at a postcard anymore, I was standing right in the middle of something I had only dreamed about seeing one day. Not to get all cliché but… keep on dreaming! They really do come true!
Saturday was spent all day on the beach. And yes, I should of splurged on that $20 bottle of sunscreen… I got fried. Capital F-ried. But the good news… luckly, my dad passed along those good genes and I have already turned for the most part. No more redness except for on my chest. Perhaps one of the best parts of the whole trip was seeing the monkeys. Not just one or two… but a whole group of them at the beach. I was warned before going to the beach that the little sneaky things like to steal things from the beach. And weirdly enough, this made me look forward to seeing them… but as the day went on we never saw them.. and then as we were starting to leave… I spotted one in a tree. A few seconds later… there were many many all around. I took some amazing pictures and it was awesome to just watch them. I even took a video of one eating watermelon, but I haven’t been able to upload it yet.
Do you think I could make it through customs with one of these little guys?!?
Later that night, we went back to the same restaurant for some more good food and drinks. I know I’ve said it before, but it’s really crazy how close we have all become in this short amount of time. I’m definitely going to miss all of the great times we have shared together when we return home.
Sunday morning was spent with an early breakfast and then shopping around at the local markets on the beach... and then of course followed by our return to Heredia. I have truly fallen in love with Manuel Antonio beaches. I can’t believe I have spent only a short amount of time here… this is definitely the good life. A little piece of my heart was left there, as I will never forget this experience of seeing one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. I find it hard to believe that life gets much better than this, but at the end of another wonderful weekend, I know that my best days are still ahead of me.
Costa Rica.... Pura Vida! J
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