Starting in the Basement

Manuel Antonio National Park has a few beaches inside that all the guide books promised were worth hanging around at.  The books were right.  There were no facilities or people renting you chairs and surfing lessons.  We first walked down to a small beach that was a little wavy for swimming but still beautiful.We saw that water and then the heat rash all over my body and decided it was time to get in that water!  It was seriously hot that day.  We went to the bigger beach, found a place in the shade and jumped in the water!

The water was amazing but I have always been a little scared of the ocean.  There was a pretty large undertow there so I was scared to go out very far but it still felt nice.  We sat there all afternoon (in the shade) and ate bananas, mangos and plantain chips.  Oh the lime and salt plantain chips!  So delicious.  At one point a woman came up to us with her camera like she was about to take a picture of us.  I couldn’t figure out what we were doing that was  so interesting until I looked back and saw a raccoon trying to steal our mango!  This crazy tourist was just going to let the raccoon attack so she could get her picture.  Luckily we saved the mango and chased off the vermin (the raccoon and the tourist).

The tide started to come in pretty quickly and after watching a few other couples get ALL their stuff soaked we decided to get out of there.  On our way out we saw this sign:

Right after we saw that sign I heard things fall from the trees.  We looked up and saw monkeys everywhere!  We were surrounded…and they were throwing what I can only assume was shit at us.  After trying to snap a picture we ran out of the park.

At the park exit we ran into some men with boats.  They were trying to get us to pay them for a ride out of the park because the tide had come in making the exit a little wet.  Like the naive tourists we are we got in and paid our dollar to get across while the guys behind us walked over in the pool…which turned out to be only calf deep.  Oops!  Another scam.

A few colones shorter we went back to the safety of our beautiful hotel pool, a few fruity cocktails and the sunset.

The next day was our last full day in Costa Rica and we had to get back to San Jose.  Our shuttle didn’t leave until 1pm so we decided to walk down to the beach from the hotel.  It was supposed to be about a 10 minute walk but quite steep.  We made it down and walked along the beach soaking up a little more heat and sun.  When we were putting our shoes back on to go up the hill we saw a young woman running out of the ocean yelling “help!”  Not what you want to hear at the ocean.  She sobbed while explaining that her husband had been swept up in the undertow and he had not come back up.  If any of you know me, I am not cool, calm or collected in moments like this.  Frenchie went running towards the water which was freaking me out and I started trying to communicate to a hotel dude on the beach that we needed help.  Somehow my amazing Spanish was not quite getting the message across and luckily there were others around to explain the situation in Spanish.  Meanwhile Frenchie was using his keen eyes to look for the “body” and there were two other guys swimming around looking as well.  At this point the wife has completely lost it and is mumbling about her husband while sobbing on the sand.  My heart broke into a tiny million pieces for her.  So scary!

Finally we spotted somebody swimming out past the breaking waves and making his way towards the shore.  The wife ran up to the beach and Frenchie went to her and showed her that he was still swimming.  As the two helpers started pulling the husband out of the water the wife asked Frenchie, “is that my husband?”

Frenchie says, “you tell me! I have never met your husband”

“I don’t have my glasses, I can’t see!”

“Well, two people went in and three are coming out, that is probably your husband.”

Such a smartass!

A skinny white guy comes stumbling out of the ocean and that is when the help finally arrives.  This is also when some other beachgoer local tells me that two people died the week before in this spot.  Awesome.  Time to go.

We huffed ourselves back up to the hotel and went straight to the pool.  Nothing has ever felt so good!  We were seriously hot at this point and a little emotionally drained.

It was sad to say goodbye to that pool but we had to get back to San Jose to catch our flight the next day.  We chose another hotel recommended to us near the airport.  It was a beautiful bed and breakfast with an amazing garden (and 3 giant dogs) called Pura Vida Hotel.

One more post to come…