Manuel Antonio: "The poetry of the earth is never dead." -John Keats

Parte Dos
I am still in awe of everything I saw this weekend. From the time we left the city of San Jose it was like we had entered a different world. We drove through the lush rainforest covered mountains on our way to the coast. We passed banana trees and coconut trees, a river full of croccodiles, and arrived in Manuel Antonio to find lizards, geckos, and frogs everywhere.

Saturday morning we rose bright and early to eat a traditional Costa Rican breakfast of gallo pinto, eggs, fresh fruit, and the source of all life, coffee. Then, it was off to the rainforest... the second source of all life. First, we followed a tour guide who pointed out a few creatures we would have never seen on our own, such as this frog and this lizard:

As we kept walking we began to spot a few animals on our own. The tropical green forest does an excellent job of hiding all the tiny critters, but the little lizards like to sunbathe on the leaves and pose for pictures, as do my friends and I.

The trail to the beach was about a mile. It took us well over an hour to walk it, because we were stopping to look at something every few seconds. When I finally caught a glimpse of the beach, I couldn't contain myself, I ran. The beach was spectacular. The water was luke warm and perfect for swimming.

Along the beach there were rocks on one side and trees on the back border. Apparently, these are favorite hangout spots for huge iguanas... we found three!

I was getting a little disappointed because I had heard so much about the monkeys at Manuel Antonio... but just as we were finishing a hike we struck gold! Not only did we find a group of monkeys, but I held hands with one; it literally reached out and placed its hand on mine.

After the monkeys we were ready for another dip in the water. As my friend was walking down the beach she saw a group of people huddled under a tree aiming upwards with their cameras. It was a sloth, fast asleep up in the branches. Sloths are amazing creatures, they spend their entire lives in trees. They only come down about once every three days to go to the bathroom, and even that practice is unusual because they bury it at the base of the tree.

Manuel Antonio was absolutely amazing. It was the perfect first trip on my Costan Rican Journey.