This part of our vacation was clearly designed to allow us to wind down, and I suppose many people consider laying out on the beach a very peaceful option. I myself must have descended from albino coal miners; the sun is not my friend. Going to the beach inevitably means that I will get burned. My ventures into direct sunlight without necessary shirtage are few and far between, and my memory allocation algorithm is not set up to store the protocol for such improbable events. Despite my otherwise responsible use of SPF ∞ sunscreen, there is always be a place on my body that I will leave uncovered, only to be reminded of later in a painful way.
Before the sunburn, we were having a very nice day. We left not too early with a big group and took a public bus for less than a quarter to Manuel Antonio. We immediately walked to the park that covered most of the end of the peninsula. To get into the park, you have to walk across a very short lagoon that got up past waist deep in the middle. There were a couple of men with small rowboats offering people rides across the thirty foot eddy and demanding tips of them afterwards. On the way into the park, we walked across at the narrowest point.
We paid our seven dollars a piece and followed the trail into the park. To our right through the poisonous trees was the Pacific and to our left was a swamp filled with lizards and caiman. Supposedly, they only let a set amount of people into the park, but it was crowded nonetheless. After the better part of a kilometer, we came across a family of capuchin monkeys that were very familiar with tourists. They were itching to steal something, preferably food. One monkey began to hop up and down right in front of me, as if to distract me so another might be able to sneak up behind and pillage my backpack.
These were not the monkeys the park was known for. We never saw the Titi monkeys (squirrel monkeys) that could only be seen in this part of Costa Rica. Nonetheless, it was a unique experience to get so close to them in the wild. After the close encounter, we made our way to a few hundred meter long beach, and put down our belongings. Most of the boys immediately jumped in the water, and Cindy was perfectly content sitting on the beach reading a book and watching our stuff.
You didn’t have to go out too far to be in above your head. The waves were nice, but not too big. We stayed out in the water for an hour. Some of us got hungry enough to venture out of the park again. This time we crossed the lagoon by boat, even though later we realized we could have still walked across. We ate barbecued chicken out on the beach at the same place some of the group had eaten yesterday. It was cheap, but we were wary of the sanitation conditions.
After lunch, Mere took off to check out some of the shops lining the road, while I jumped back in the ocean at the public beach. The waves there were much larger than at the beach in the park. I had a lot of fun just letting myself be batted about by the waves, being careful to stay close enough in so I could still stand up and fight back against the undertow if need be.
After some time at this, I found Meredith again and we re-entered the park, hoping to find some of our group that had stayed behind earlier. We didn’t find them, but we saw another sloth (I learned the Spanish word was perezoso), and came across a large herd of tiny hermit crabs. We stared in awe at this little society of hundreds of crabs, the largest one the size of my thumb. We’d watch one big one trudge along, walking over the small ones or pushing them out of the way. Then there’d be a dogpile of crabs on top of a single crab; we wondered if they were trying to eat it. We were entranced by the constant motion.
Eventually, I’d had enough of the sun and saltwater, and we said goodbye to Manuel Antonio and boarded the bus back to the hotel. We had to carefully watch out for the correct bus stop. Once there, I sought out relief for my tinted skin in the pool. Eventually, everyone from the group that had gone to the beach that morning made it back to the pool. We sat around or in the pool listening to Anthony’s IPod speakers for a couple of hours. Mere ordered a couple of mixed drinks that Dave and Jimmy had turned her on to. Monkey juice is a mixture of guaro, a liquor made from sugar cane, and banana smoothie. Our group liked them so much that the hotel actually ran out of guaro.
For dinner, we all braved the rain and went to El Avion, a restaurant whose centerpiece (or gimmick, really) was a C-123 the owners had salvaged at an airfield in northern Costa Rica near the Nicaraguan border. The plane had been used during the Iran-Contra affair to transport weapons to the Contras, but was quickly abandoned once the scandal broke. The plane itself contained a bar, and the restaurant was built around it. I thought the food was good but not great. I ordered a steak, which I too-cautiously ordered medium well. I did enjoy the chance to eat mashed potatoes. We bought a couple of t-shirts to send to our dads.
Later, a card game broke out again near our group’s favorite swimming pool. I played one or two games, and went to bed.
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