In the past few days, I was able to head over to Manuel Antonio National
Park…which was extremely gorgeous….a little touristy…but still worth
the trip. I hitched a ride with Ian and Annie (Annie is from Portland and
used to work at 94.7…small world) a couple that was staying in the same
cabinas as us. We took a pretty decent hike along the point and saw all
sorts of things from white faced monkeys to sloths, iguanas to bright red
orange crabs, and tons of other little critters that I have no idea how to
describe. At one point, a howler monkey and I were yelling back and forth at
one another…although I never actually saw him. He was burried deep in the
jungle. The beach there is also beautiful. After a long and extremely hot
hike, we were glad to fnally jump in the turquoise water. I slept on the
beach for a while until I was awaked by an iguana sneaking up on us and
eventually, we made our way back to Hermosa.
Hermosa is pretty small. There is not a lot to do there and as Paul (the
Austin Costa Rican told me)…I should surf, work on my tan, or read a book.
Thats pretty much all you can do in that town…so it was nice to finally
move on to a new place.
After an 8 hour day of traveling yesterday, I have made it to Mal Pais, a
small surfing town on the Nicoya Peninsula. This place is pretty much in the
middle of nowhere. Yesterday, Jason and I took a public bus, what is
sometimes called a chicken bus (not because of chickens, but because of the
number of people they cram onto it), from Jaco to Puntarenas. The bus ride
is an hour and a half through the jungle and luckily, I was one of the lucky
ones to have a seat. Jason stood the whole time. When we arrived in
Puntarenas, we took a ferry to Paquera. The ferry ride was beautiful and we
ended up meeting two girls from San Francisco as well as a Father and
Daughter duo from Ohio. I am starting to see more and more people on this
trip…thank God….probably because we are finally out of Playa Hermosa.
Almost everyone is American, which I am not used to at all when traveling.
The six of us ended up grabbing a taxi to go to Mal Pais which was
definitely a splurge because they were once again cramming a bus full of
people and the roads are so bad….it would have been an awful ride. There
are potholes everywhere….some of it is paved, but most of it is unpaved
and the fastest you can go is about 20 mph. This place is VERY much off of
the beaten path, but somehow, people make their way over here.
We spent a lot of time looking for a place to stay last night…but finally
found a cute little bungalow with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a
patio. However, there were quite a few small critters and its very much away
from everything…so Im definitely moving somewhere today. I will probably
head over to Mal Pais surf camp. They have a pretty big restaurant area, a
pool table, ping pong table, swings in the bar, beautifully landscaped
grounds, a pool, and a lot more.
Jason headed off this morning to who knows where. For some reason he thought
this place was too secluded(its much busier than Hermosa though…so Im a
lot happier here). Im stoked to be on my own again though because all he
wanted to do was sleep and surf (I have been going to bed at 9p every night
because it gets dark so early here) and we didnt really meet a whole lot of
new people traveling together.
So now I am off to find a new place to stay and take some surf lessons.
Good Times & Tan Lines 