Monkeys, Hostels, and the Beach!

The Friday of last week was my final day of Spanish class.  It turns out that I wasn’t allowed to take another Spanish course without paying $750 extra.  After thinking about it for a day, I decided not to pay for the extra class and to just not have another Spanish course.  It kind of stinks because I relay liked my profesora and the class was great.  Still, I can learn just as well without it.  I just need to speak speak speak.  My friend Laura (who is basically fluent) and I are going to meet regularly and practice together in the morning.  Now my mornings are free to run, converse with my host family, sleep in a bit if I can, etc.

Some weather humor at the hostel.

As I think I mentioned in my last post, our group of friends (10 of us) went to Manuel Antonio this weekend.  If you know nothing of Manuel Antonio, it’s basically a large national park with hiking trails, beaches you can swim in and lay on within the park, lots of wildlife, etc.  We took the bus to Quepos from San Jose Friday afternoon.  The trip only took about 3 hours or so which wasn’t too bad.  I sat with Laura and we had a great conversation about morals, ethics, and the role God played in forming our little group of friends.  Another group of students that also studies at Veritas was on the same bus as we were.  It was nice to have more people to talk to.

A view of one of the "hallways" at the hostel.

            Quepos is the town that we ended up staying at while we were on the Pacific Coast.  It was only about a 15 minute bus ride to Manuel Antonio from Quepos.   We decided on Quepos over Manuel Antonio because there are more stores to buy food at, more restaurants to eat at, more hostels to stay at, and everything’s cheaper in Quepos.  The hostel we decided to stay at was called the Wide Mouth Frog.  Let’s just say that the hostel was amazing.  The people were great, the hostel was safe and cheap ($12 a night), they had a pool, free breakfast, a lounge area with a TV, hammocks everywhere, and lots of pet dogs.  I would recommend it to anyone staying near Manuel Antonio.  Here’s a link to it if you want to find out more about it or just look at the pictures. http://www.widemouthfrog.org/

The kitchen/dining area at the hostel.  It was a great place to hang out and talk with other travelers.

This is what the $12 a night room looks like.  It has 11 beds and it's communal.  Everyone in one room.  However, our group had two rooms since they didn't have enough space in these big ones.  We got one private room for 4 but at the same low price.

            My friend Michelle was also staying at the Wide Mouth Frog (WMF).  She thought she heard my voice and came over to see if it was me and it was.  Kind of funny that with so many hostels in Quepos, as well as on the road to Manuel Antonio and in Manuel Antonio, she would pick the one we were staying at.  Michelle, by the way, is from Sweden and was in my Basic I Spanish class and my Basic II class (which, sadly, I am not in anymore).  Her friend from Sweden was visiting her in Costa Rica.

This was the private room we got at a discount on.  It was small and only had 4 beds.  But since you don't spend all day in the rooms it wasn't a big deal.  All you need is a place to sleep when you've exhausted yourself exploring all day.

            That Friday night we decided to eat out for dinner and found a nice little restaurant on the second floor of some shops.  We ate, laughed, practiced our Spanish a little, and conversed.  It was a good night.  Afterwards we went back to the hostel and just relaxed the rest of the night.  Some people went swimming, some watched a movie, and others socialized with some guests at the WMF.  The other travelers at the hostel were so easy to talk to.  So many of them have very interesting stories of why they are there and what they do in life. 

The next morning we had gallo pinto, watermelon, pineapple, toast, and oatmeal for breakfast.  It was free so it was delicious.  We at around 7am and then went to find the bus to take us to Manuel Antonio for the day.  The buses run every 30 minutes between the two places and it only costs 240 colones which is roughly $0.50.  The park cost $10 to get into it for the day.  It was at this moment that I realized I had not budgeted for the park when I packed my cash.  Since I was around friends, they were more than willing to help out with my lack of planning and cover for me.  Thanks Quincy!

Senor Iguana

After we were about 20 feet into the park we saw our first bit of wildlife, an iguana just hanging out on a tree.  About 20 feet further we saw our next creature, a sleeping monkey in a tree.  When we were close to the beach (which was about a 15 minute hike from the entrance) we saw a sloth with a baby that was all up close and personal.  I heard a ranger say that it was one of the most active sloths that he had seen.  It was funny because the sloth was still moving so terribly slow.  By the way, the Spanish word for “lazy” is the same word for “sloth.”  After all the fun and picture taking with the sloth, we made it to the beach.

The sloth.  You can't really see that baby attached to her chest in this photo.  Check out my Facebook page for more pictures of this lazy creature.

A view of the first beach we swam at in the park.  This was taken while on our little hike.  Ignore the old man in the lower right hand corner. Jejeje

The water was clear, the waves were small, there weren’t too many people there, the sand was white; it was very nice and relaxing.  Most of us just laid out on the beach.  Of course we got into the water and I went exploring across some rocks along the coast, but overall it was just a great time to relax and enjoy the beautiful surroundings.  Don’t worry, I put on sunscreen this time unlike last weekend at the beach.  While we were just sitting on the beach, I saw some people point and start to get excited.  It was monkeys!!  A little group of Howler monkeys had made its way to the beach.  They were in the trees right at the start of the beach.  They were quite friendly and, of course, people were feeding them even though they were not supposed to.  I witnessed one monkey rob a lady’s backpack when she left it unattended.  Crafty little creatures but still amazing.

You could get up close to the Howlers.

Just relaxing a bit... you know.

            After spending about 4 hours at the first beach we started the hike to the next beach within the park.  A group of four of us decided to go on a hike around the trails.  I’m glad I went because we saw more monkeys, some sort of large rat thingy (I forget the name), and I held hands with a monkey!  Caroline took a picture of it.  He was eating some flowers from a tree so I plucked a flower and offered it to him.  He took it right from my hand.  It was awesome!

Whatever this large rat thingy was called.

It was almost like he was challenging me to take the picture.  Challenge accept, monkey.

            Once we got back to the beach from our little excursion it was about time to leave the park since it closes at 4pm.  We started to pack up when someone from the group said she couldn’t find her wallet with her money, debit card, home keys, and hostel keys all in it.  We frantically looked for it around where we were sitting and retraced our steps back to the other beach but didn’t have any luck.  Someone suggested that we try searching her backpack again and we ended up finding it in one of the backpack pockets.  Disaster averted. 

The monkey touched me.  This picture is courtesy of Caroline.

            We finished out the day on the beach in Manuel Antonio watching the sun set on the public beach outside of the park.  Caroline, Josh, Sarah, Laura, and I threw the Frisbee around while it set.  It was a good conclusion to a great day at the beach.  We all jammed onto the bus to ride it back to Quepos.  When I say jammed, I mean that there were probably more people standing up in the aisle than there were sitting in the seats.  We, of course, were in the aisle.

Another Pacific sunset.

            Once back in Quepos we showered, or in my case, took a dip in the pool for a shower, found a cheap soda to eat at, and then came back to the hostel to sleep.  I was tired from a long day at the beach and probably a little dehydrated.  But it was all worth it.  I slept great Saturday night.  Sunday morning we all ate the free breakfast again and then Caroline and I went out searching for a place to surf.  Granted, she was more committed to finding a place to surf than I was but I did want to surf again.  Thanks for tolerating my lack of contribution in finding a place to surf, Caroline.  Turns out, after asking a soda owner, that the only place to surf nearby was at Manuel Antonio.  We had to check out of the hostel by 11am and it was already 9am so we decided to just go back to the hostel and swim/hang out.

Some parrots hanging out on the beach.

            The bus ride back to San Jose was uneventful and only 3 hours.  We got back around 3:30pm and then decided to all meet up at 5ish to go find a bar to watch the Super Bowl.  We ended up going to an Irish Pub, Stan’s Irish Pub.  It was fun to hang out with friends and talk.  It was even more fun to watch Laura get into the game because she’s from Green Bay.  Luckily Green Bay won.  Overall, one of the best weekends I’ve had since coming to CR.  The animals, the beach, hiking, the hostel, and good friends all made it memorable.  I don’t think we’re planning on going anywhere next weekend.  I think we’re just going to take it off and relax a bit in San Jose because we’ve traveled somewhere every weekend since being in CR.  If you’ve enjoyed the pictures here, check out the rest of them on my Facebook page.

Me relaxing in one of the hammocks at the hostel.

         Also, this morning, I met Laura for coffee and we talked Spanish and life together for about an hour.  We both don't have class in the mornings now.  I finally had my first cup of coffee.  I got it straight up black.  I only added a little sugar.  It wasn't that bad.  I don't know if I would get it every day but, heck, I'm in Costa Rica.  I should be open to new things, right?  Plus the company was well worth it.  Hasta luego!