manuel antonio

Us three Georgia girls set off for another road trip weekend on Friday and arrived in Manuel Antonio just after dark.

We met up for dinner at one of our hotel’s restaurants and enjoyed some delicious grub and some lovely hospitality before calling it an early night. Those are becoming quite the norm for us these days, but hey, we’re still recovering from all the socializing we did in Atlanta.

Jules and I had a leisurely breakfast on Saturday by the pool at our hotel which was tucked just inside the lush greenery of the jungle. We lounged by the pool and kept our eyes out for monkeys until it was time to head out on our snorkeling tour early that afternoon.

The hotel had told us it would take about 5 ½ hours. That’s a pretty good amount of time so we were expecting some pretty great snorkeling. After a short transfer into the neighboring town of Quepos we boarded the catamaran with about 40 or so other tourists. Immediately we spotted some dolphins and followed them around for a bit. We then began a slow ride around the coastline and when it was announced drinks were on the house we quickly deduced this was going to be more of a booze cruise than a snorkeling expedition. Which was fine with us, it was a beautiful day and it felt great being out on the water…





We did actually snorkel. Well, I did for about 10 minutes. The visibility was poor and the fish life pretty scarce. When Jules spotted a jelly I swam back in and got myself another rum punch. I’ve got a bad track record with those little creatures and was not risking yet another sting for such meager snorkeling. When a guy climbed back in the boat with a pretty nasty whelp across his arm I took another sip of my cocktail and knew I had made the right decision.

The crew had cooked us up some delicious fish kabobs, but my cocktail-to-food ratio didn’t feel too balanced, so I suggested another meal at the cute little restaurant at our hotel. We finished off the night there with good food, another cocktail or two, easy conversation and lots of laughter.

After breakfast and check-out on Sunday we headed down to the national park. We had to stand in line for a while and just as I was about to melt into a pool on the ground they opened the gate.

We skipped hiring a guide which turned out to be fine because it was easy enough to look where others were looking. We got to see everything we hoped to see and even a few extras. It is no wonder this is the most visited park in the country…






Outside of our trip to Bangkok this may have been the hottest I’ve ever been. The animals were awesome, but it felt amazing to get back into the car, crank up the air conditioning and head back to San Jose and our shower.

It was a great weekend and in just 3 days we’ll be off again. It is Semana Santa (Holy Week) here leading up to Easter so we get a 4 day weekend and are headed to Nicaragua on Wednesday night.

Hope everyone has a great Easter and eats at least a dozen deviled eggs for me!