No Fixed Plans

We started with an 8:30am departure to Quepos. This was about a 5 hour drive but we made many stops along the way to look at the wildlife. Our first stop was about an hour in to a crocodile park. We then drove another hour or so to a buffet style lunch. After this we drove for about another hour and stopped at the side of the road as it was a good spot to see red-capped manakin birds (otherwise known as Michael Jackson birds). When then drove the rest of the way to the hotel. Myself and my roommate stayed in the room for about 30 minutes before going on a walk to the beach side and back, taking about 45 minutes. We then stayed in the hotel for about 45 until it was time to go on the mangrove tour that we signed up for. This tour included dinner after. During this tour we saw many spiders, birds, bats, and we finished the tour with seeing an owl. We then went to have dinner, which a local cat decided to join us for before heading back to the hotel for showers and bed. 

The next morning we took a local bus at 8:15am to go to the Manual Antonio national park. We took about 1.5 hours to walk the trail before having 3 hours of free time to walk some of the other trails or stay on the beach. After walking back, we went to a restaurant for lunch which the bus to head back also happened to make stops at. We took about 2 hours here to eat before heading back to the hotel. 

When getting back, I quickly showered, went to an atm to get more usd out and then headed off with my ceo to get a new tattoo. Between getting there, getting the tattoo, and getting back to the hotel it was only about 45 minutes. We got back at exactly 6:15, which also happened to be when the rest of the group had decided to go to dinner so it was perfect timing. After dinner, 5 of us went to ice cream while the ceo and one group member went back to the hotel. We ate the ice cream at the resort place that the shop was in and then took the long way back to the hotel to stop by the local farmers market. 

The next morning we all took it slow as it was the one morning where we didn’t need to be up early. We all spent most of the morning sitting on rocks close to the beach talking and watching locals fish. We had to be back at the hotel at 1pm so we went to get ice cream at 12, took our time eating it and then headed back. We then had a 3 hour drive back to San Jose where we stopped once for bathrooms and to look around a massive souvenir shop. 

Upon getting back to our first hotel we took 15 minutes to put our stuff away before heading to dinner. On the way we stopped at a celebration for Costa Rica’s African background. We all walked around for about 30 minutes, got some food from the stands and listened to the live concert for a bit before heading to dinner. Afterwards we all said our goodbyes to each other.