Manuel Antonio Beach

Buenas!

Where do I begin? I have so much to say! Friday was a relatively uneventful day at work, except there was a small celebration in the afternoon. At the end of every month, all of the businesses on the floor get together and eat cake to honor another successful month and birthdays or congratulations for fellow employees. Throughout the month, employees also write cute notes to each other, to thank them or give them a compliment. At the end of the month, they're distributed. It was adorable to watch the smiles on peoples' faces.

On Saturday morning, we left at 7 a.m. (NOT cool) for Manuel Antonio. We stopped at a restaurant on the side of the road for breakfast. In the United States, the side of the road is a service station with Starbucks or a trucker stop like Denny's. Here, it is a family owned, open air cafe overlooking cascading green mountains and coffee plants. The Pacific Ocean was in the distance. I had my omelette and ate it, too.

When we arrived in Manuel Antonio, we dropped our bags off at our hotel, El Mono Azul (The Blue Monkey), and went straight to the beach. The area is quite popular among tourists but for good reason. The beach is gorgeous. There are souvenir shops and artists lining the street. The water was the perfect temperature, and we rented boogie boards and surfed the waves all afternoon. Natalie, Alira, Jeremy, Amy and I went to a local restaurant for lunch. There were tiny squirrel monkeys in the window of the shop next door! I took a million pictures.

The beach was refreshing. I've spent plenty of time in the Atlantic, but the Pacific was just as fun. Tican vendors kept trying to sell us things, like fresh coconuts, wooden trinkets and hair braiding. Every Caribbean island and Latin American beach town sells the same souvenirs. I love it.

On Saturday night, we ate at a restaurant called El Avion. There was an actual crashed plane there. The restaurant's bar was inside, and the kitchen below sent up finished entrees through an elevator that came through the back of the plane. The restaurant overlooked the ocean and surrounding real estate. There is some serious real estate there, too. I wonder who buys these homes.

After dinner, we went back into town to a bonfire. It was 75% gringo, 25% local. No me cae bien. We left when the band wasn't up to our standards (we've been spoiled with all the Latin music here), and went to another bar up the road. I showed off my newly acquired salsa skills and recently learned Michael Jackson singing. I have never heard Thriller so many times as I have since Thursday. Insert all of the witty comments you can make with his song lyrics here.

There was a gringa woman who kept talking to us at the bar who was...strange. She told me that she never had kids, had a terrible accident, was in a coma, was pronounced dead and now has a different outlook on life, clearly. She's from California. One day, her chiropractor husband came home from work to find their house for sale and all of their belongings packed. They moved to Costa Rica without a plan and bought a house. She has no phone, and she just got internet a month ago after living here for five years. She has a hair salon here for women from the United States. She kept saying, "Thank goodness there's a need for soft tissue chiropractors here, or else we would never make it." She runs 10 miles on the beach every day, and goes back to the U.S. once a year to see her family and shop for the entire year. She said that her gringo friends who don't have permanent residency permits (apparently very expensive) are legally required to leave Costa Rica for 72 hours every three months. They take buses to Panama or Nicaragua instead of spending hundreds on flights elsewhere. Needless to say, this is way too much information one should ever learn about another person at a random bar in Manuel Antonio. I think she was lonely. I knew it was weird to talk to a stranger for so long, but I love learning about the lives of others. And she wouldn't leave.

This morning, we woke up early and went to the national park. On our hike, we saw a toucan, a sloth, tons of iguanas and other equally creepy reptiles. The hike ended at another beautiful beach with monkeys everywhere. They were so aggressive. We saw a monkey climb out on a tree branch and steal some tourist's bag of food. He and his monkey friends took the bananas out of the bag and then threw the bag away. We swam all morning in the clear water. There were black rocks in the distance and hermit crabs and soft white sand and nature...paradise, really. I was sad to leave. The hike back was along the water. There was so much natural beauty; I could have stayed there forever.

We went to a restaurant called Cafe Milagro for lunch. My meal: mora (blackberry) juice, chicken pesto sandwich with avocado on a baguette, banana chips and a chocolate milkshake. Heaven on a plate, basically. I was sad to leave. Maybe if Ila comes, we'll go back there.

I slept all the way home (is anyone surprised?), and enjoyed hot homemade burritos for dinner, compliments of Patri.

Back to work tomorrow! There's a 4th of July picnic this Friday somewhere in San Jose. Eric was telling us about it today. It sounds like all the gringos get together and celebrate, so I'm looking forward to it.