Costa Rica- Day 6 – Manuel Antonio National Park

Another early morning…our first bus took 3 hours from Monteverde to Puntarenas. After a 2 hours layover in Puntarenas, a hot, dirty, polluted port city, we were off to Quepos, a city very close to the park, which took another 3.5 hours. Since we couldn’t make breakfast, the people at La Mariposa were

Our hotel, Hotel Mimos, had a swimming pool, so to cool off after the sweaty bus rides, we jumped into the pool. There were noodles, kickboards, and it was fun to just kick back and relax and play like kids again.

For dinner, we went to Gnam, and Italian restaurant recommended by our Italian hotel owner. Leanne and I ordered pesto gnocchi, Esther a sandwich, and Amy spaghetti with vegetable sauce. The owner of Gnam was a very enthusiastic Italian man. I tried out my very rusty Italian and made some mistakes with him, and reverted back to Spanish. Amy made her happy face and said that her dish was so much better than the North End. For dessert, Amy and I got gelato, also very delicious!

The one thing that really surprised me about Manuel Antonio was how developed the road from Quepos to the Park is. It was the most American and Spring Break-esque place I did seen all trip. It wasn’t actually that bad at all, considering the extreme of Cancun 2 spring breaks ago, but it was still more than expected. I expect it will only get worse in the future. Currently, it takes 4 hours to go to the beach from San Jose. They are building a new road that will make it take only 1 hour.