Manual Antonio

Day 4
New Year's day starts out slowly. We check into our new hotel, the Blue Monkey, and have breakfast. Then we kick it at the pool for a little while and find out about scuba diving options in town. After setting up our dive for tomorrow we drive back to Manual Antonio to go to the beach at the national park. We arrive pretty late and supposedly only have 1.5 hours in the park, but we decide to go for it anyway. As soon as we enter the park we encounter an entire troop of monkeys, Titi or Squirrel monkeys, one of them throws a nut at my head. Then we see White-Faced Capuchin monkeys and a deer. We continue on the path untill we come to the beach. There we saw a sloth in a tree and another troop of Titi monkeys. These monkeys are so close to people you can almost touch them. One guy tries to and the monkey pees on him. We take a swim in the ocean and the ranger blows his whistle telling us the park is closing. Luckily, everybody is exiting in the opposite direction then we had come in so we were able to get about 45 minutes more of hiking in the park. Exiting the park is kind of interesting, you follow a path until it hits the water and then you have to ford a stream until you get to the Manual Antonio beach.

We have drinks and a snack across from the beach and discover that they do not know how to make nachos in Costa Rica. They have all the right ingredients, but they put cheese on the beans with salsa and lettuce and leave the chips on the side. To me this is not nachos, bean dip, but not nachos. We go back to our bar from New Years to get another toasted coconut margarita. That night we go to El Avion, a restaurant around a large cargo plane that was formally owned by the Contras. There is some information about the Iran Contra scandal and the food is pretty good, but the service is painfully slow.

Day 5
After breakfast I get picked up to go to the dive shop to learn how to scuba dive. Andreas and Laura just stay at the hotel and plan to meet me when we actually go for the dive. There is one other woman on my class. We start by watching a pretty basic video, with instructions like don't tease the dish, and then we go to practice in a hotel pool. Basically it takes a little while to really trust that you will be able to breath with the regulator, and not to want to take your head out of the water, but otherwise is pretty easy. The hardest part is moving your body which is awkward and slow and it really hard to control your depth. We play a couple of games on the pool and practice a few skills and then we are good to go.

We have about an hour break before the dive so the other student and I go out and have lunch at a place called the Joker. We return to the dive shop and get our gear ready. Andreas and Laura join us as do 4 others. We take off in a van to the pier, load our gear and head off in a boat. We head out to our first site and prepare to dive. I go down with the instructor and the other student. He constantly keeps a check on us and I return the OK sign. As we start moving off from the line, I have trouble maintaining my depth. They add another weight to me and that helps some, but I still find it is really hard. I float around with my instructor, the other student needs more help so he mostly just checks that I'm OK and tells me to correct my depth. The visibility is really bad and I can hardly see Andreas or Laura the whole time. We see some cool fish, and a little sea creature that pops out of a small hole. Eventually we go up, by which time I'm tired and ready for it. Apparently we go up early because I am running out of air. After a bit of rest in the boat, I'm not sure I can go for a second dive. My chest feels really constricted and I feel a little panicky. I get out of my wet suit and that feels a lot better then I jump of the boat with Andreas and swim a little which helps. The second dive is mostly different because the other first timer doesn't come. So it is just me the instructor has to look over which means less on checking on us and more on looking for fist. However, the conditions are not great. We do see an eel and a couple big schools, but not much more. I see a lot more of the others this time. When we finally go up we are in time for a great sunset over the sea. We deal with everything at the dive shop and then we go back to our hotel for a rest. For dinner we go to La Cantina. We are all starving at this point so we order a large amount of food. Appetizers, salads and main courses. It is all really good and we stuff our selves till Andreas and I have trouble walking out. We roll into bed and pass out.

Day 6
On our last morning in Manual Antonio we decide to go on a canopy tour. A bus picks us up and then takes us through some plantations to the canopy tour. The bus ride is not good for Laura, and not great for our guide who tries his jokes on the group, but just has a hard time getting much of a response. We do learn that teak can be used as a dye like henna. Before we start the zip lines there is a small butterfly house with some snakes that we take a quick tour of. Then we suit up and get on the zip lines. We zip around from tree to tree with some repelling and Tarzan swing and some hiking in between. I can never get my carabiner on the zip line and the guides grow to hate me. After the tour we have a delicious lunch, which is only sides for me cause the main dish is chicken, but the plantains are yummy and I eat my fill.

After the tour we drive down to the Osa peninsula. One the way we pass a police checkpoint where they ask us if we have arms. We are about to them of course we do, when we realize they mean guns. The road is very good till we turn off to the peninsula, then it is dark and has parts that are unpaved. To find our hotel we are supposed to follow the signs with a deer's footprint on it. This seems challenging but turns out to be easy and we arrive at the Osa Lodge without incident. This place is really cute, wood carvings everywhere and Andreas and Laura have a hut that is open to the jungle except for mosquito netting. More importantly there bathroom is totally open to the elements except for a bamboo wall. Dinner is served communally and is very pleasant. We look at the various hikes and tours for tomorrow and try to plan our day.