Costa Rica: Playa Hermosa / Jaco Beach

Transportation: The bus from Monteverde to Puntarenas was EPIC! It followed the ridge line all the way to the valley floor. Terrifying at times because there was no guard rail and these large fruit trucks kept hauling ass, screeching on their brakes then coming between inches of the bus and the edge. Luckily both drivers seemed to have done this before and we arrived safely. It cost about $3.00 and took 3 hours. We then took a bus from Puntarenas to Playa Hermosa for $2.50. (It took about 1.5 hours.) If you ever choose to do this…ask the bus driver to pull over at Playa Hermosa because you will undoubtedly miss it and find yourself huffing it back to the dirt road turnoff.

Termite colony

Playa Hermosa is about 6 km from Jaco which is where the supermarket, liquor store and anything else you need lay. So when necessary we would hitch hike into town. We met some really lovely people on the way. We got picked up by tour guides, police officers, surfer bums, and a couple from Vegas starting up... you guessed it a casino!

Accommodations: We stayed at Molly's friend’s beach house for $100/week. It had a swimming pool which we took advantage of, drinking rum and juice far too early in the morning simply because it was so damn hot it felt like 2 pm even though it was 10 am and... everyone else was doing it.

The beach was right across the street which was also a pleasant place to drink cold beers and whiskey cokes... oh and watch Tom try to surf (he did get up, so he says...but is there proof? Nope, only his word... which, you who know him know how far that goes ;) )

The beach and the deck had some of the best sunsets I've seen in a very long time!

Manuel Antonio National Park: We took the bus to Quepos which hosts Manuel Antonio National Park. The town looks cool. If we didn't have a place already it would have been neat to stay here. They had this theme going to redo old planes, trains, and automobiles into coffee shops and restaurants. The park was extremely touristy. I felt like we were entering Disneyland at first with all these tour guides dressed like they were ready to board you onto Indiana Jones. But in the park we found a waterfall off the beaten path. You could walk under it and climb on top of it. (Tom and I tried to shake some limes off a tree for Margaritas later that night but failed.) It was cool to be in a place so lush and then BAM! There was the beach scattered with monkeys. Monkeys on a beach are still very strange to me.

We were also treated to a sloth coming down to do his doodoo which was quite a treat. Their perma-smile gets me every time. The sloth really made the park worth it but everything else we ended up seeing in other places with far less people.