Costa Rica: Manuel Antonio and Alajuela

By this point in our trip, Amanda and I were done. We were tired. We were exhausted. And it had only been a few days. But in those few days, we'd taken a bus up to La Fortuna, explored the city, visited a chocolate museum, hiked, swam at a waterfall, swam at the hot springs, drank, hiked some more, met up with new friends where we played games and drank some more, and taken a really bumpy ride over to Manuel Antonio.

Speaking of the ride, we discovered that getting our shuttle from the place next door as opposed to our hostel was $10 cheaper, and was the same shuttle service...

We made a stop, which included seeing these beauties...

This area felt much more secluded.

Some quick tips for Manuel Antonio:

The local bus is cheap,

so have some colones coins on hand.

There are plenty of adventure activities to do.

If going to the national park,

there is a limit before they close the park to new guests.

Arrive there first thing in the morning

to get entry.

There will be a line to get the tickets,

then a line to get in.

Take caution of your bags.

Monkeys will yank bags away from you,

right off your backs,

and bite you

in hopes of there being food inside.

We hung out at the hostel, which turned out to be much more run down than we expected. The people running the place were nice, but they did have some misleading information on their booking.com page. I probably should review that... There is another hostel but I'm not sure why we didn't go with it. It's just right down the road. And getting to the bus stop was terrifying. We had to walk on the road, there were no sidewalks, and it was around a bend. I held my breath and scurried the whole time we walked it, hoping no crazy fast driver would veer around.

Amanda on the hammock right outside our door. It rained a little while we were there, but it was nice!

The beach we went to (by the local bus)

Random cow in the middle of the night?

Coffee Maker

The ride from Manuel Antonio to San Jose was half an hour long and 12 passengers full. It was nice. We did have to step on a scale, so they got weight measurements of all our bags. It was very small, and much like you'd expect a small town to be, rules aren't so strict, as they just go along with whatever works.

We relaxed in Manuel Antonio. It probably wasn't the most exciting part of our trip, but it was nice! We road a boat and snorkeled for 75$ with 8 drinks each. We enjoyed the beach. And we explored the city a little, buying souvenirs.

In Alajuela, that's where almost nobody spoke English. We were more surrounded by Spanish than any other part of the trip. Alajuela is close to San Jose, which is where the international airport is. We were told there is a cheaper way to fly in, a cheaper airport, not San Jose. But I didn't look into it.

In Alajuela, we visited a free history museum, took an Uber to the Starbucks farm and walked around (but missed the tour), and checked out the farmer's market. We got full off free samples, I bought a hat, and she bought sour blackberries that she later discovered were full of worms. As far as we know, we didn't get worms. But it was very gross.

Some more photos:

Epilogue