Magnificent Manuel Antonio

Evening at the beach

For my third weekend in Costa Rica and my last "free" excursion with ISA, we headed to Manuel Antonio. To be more specific, we headed to a beautiful hotel next to Manuel Antonio National Park, located near Quepos, Costa Rica. That trip had a bit of everything: hiking trails, beaches, swimming pools, wildlife; it was magnificent. I got a chance to see monkeys, the first time I've ever seen them outside of a zoo. I got a chance to return to my Colorado element by hiking through the national park, but at the same time enjoy the different type of hiking: in a forest, at a low altitude, humid, with views of the ocean. I also got attacked by a bat and almost had raccoons steal my belongings. Overall, I'd say that it was a successful weekend.

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I started Friday, before I even left for Manuel Antonio, already having a good time. My Spanish class took a field trip to an amusement park to play traditional Costa Rican children's games with the other Intermediate 1 classes and to go on a scavenger hunt within the "old town" area of the park. No, we didn't get to ride any rides, play carnival games, or eat amusement park foods, but we still had a good time. Each class taught the rest of the students a couple of games that they had learned within their classes. My class was assigned "Arroz con Leche" and  a game that very much resembled "Red-light, green-light" (I forgot what the name was).

Arroz con Leche is a game apparently played by young Costa Rican children. It starts with someone in the middle. Everyone sings the song to the game:

           Arroz con leche. Yo quiero casar

           Con una señorita de la capital

           Que sepa barrer, que sepa caser

           Que sepa abrir la puerta para ir a jugar

           Con esta si, con esta no

           Con esta señorita me caso yo

Upon the end of the song, the person in the middle points to someone. That individual picks a number and everyone has to form a group with that many people. The people not in a group are out. The game continues with the chosen person in the middle.

Though the game is fun and silly when played by college students, it is a great illustration of the culture of machismo that is present within Costa Rica and other Latin American countries. In these countries, women are seen as the caretakers of the home, the good mothers and wives. Catcalling is a regular part of the culture and is meant to be taken as a compliment. Women are seen as inferior to men and their place is in the household. Though gender roles reinforce this machismo, and though women are supposed to be limited to the household, they are very much respected in that role. Women are the heads of household and have a lot of power in that domain. With newer generations, we see a shift in this belief that women are limited to the home, with more women out in the workforce and obtaining educations than ever. For example, my mama tica is a dentist, as is my papa tica. Catcalling definitely exists here, and I've received it, but for me, I think it's more of a problem in the US because in the US it is more forceful and persistent, whereas the catcalling doesn't really go past the initial call. 

When your professor decides to play jumprope too

Other games included jumprope (which the professors joined in on), hide-and-seek, and a couple of others I missed out on because the people who were sent to find us during hide-and-seek never came and found us. After a good 10-20 minutes of hiding, we gave up only to find everyone else playing other games. We ended our field trip with a scavenger hunt around Pueblo Antiguo and my team, despite our lack of competitiveness, got some snacks as a prize for being one of the first groups done. I wasn't looking to beat the other teams, but I won't say I didn't enjoy the treats.


After the field trip, I headed with the rest of my program to Manuel Antonio. On the bus ride, we got to see a couple of monkeys just hanging around the town. When we arrived, I was not expecting to see what I saw: this big giant hotel right next to the national park. The amenities and view were amazing! There were pools, a view of the national forest, balconies, several beaches within walking distance, and the architecture reminded of me of that which you would see in Morocco. There was even a little underground tunnel that led to one of the beaches nearby. That evening was pretty chill. I ate dinner with some of the other students at a small place by the beach, explored the hotel, and watched part of Man of Steel with my roommate and some of the guys from the program. While exploring the top floor of the hotel, where there was an adult only pool, bar, and several lounge areas, a bat flew out of nowhere and ran into my face. Needless to say, that was the end of my exploration.
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On Saturday, I was fortunate enough to spend my entire day within Manuel Antonio National Park. This park is much different than the ones I'm used to seeing back at home. The park had many different hiking trails with different viewing points, as well as several different beaches. While the people I normally talked to headed straight for the beach, I ran into some guys from my program who desired to hike most of the day, as I did. I asked if I could join them, and that was that. 

Our first trail to hike was a short one which led to a small waterfall. Right away, I knew hiking in this park would be so different from other hikes I had been on. Back at home, trails are basically just marked terrain. Here, they were almost like sidewalks with wooden staircases. I thought this was odd and a little unusual, but kept at it anyways. 

After enjoying the view of the waterfall, we hiked back to the main path, following it straight until it divided in two. At that fork, we saw our first couple of monkeys. There were white-faced monkeys and howler monkeys. They were cute and pretty energetic, not really enjoying all the foot traffic, trying to pee on all of the people below. I don't blame them though; how would it make you feel if people were exploring your home every day and taking pictures of you all the time? At that fork, we decided to take the left path, which held three hiking trails, a private beach, and a beach that's not really swimmable, while the other path led to several beaches and one hiking trail. Since hiking was our focus, we headed left to begin with.

The first trail we hiked was the sloth trail. Apparently, this trail follows the areas where the sloths were likely to hang out. Though there were some great viewing points, we didn't see any sloths. It was rather disappointing.

The second trail we hiked was the mirador trail, it was the longest trail of the park and led to a beautiful view of the ocean at it's end. We spend some time there taking pictures of the landscape and taking some selfies of us taking selfies with the background, or "self-ception" as we called it. The views were unlike those I would normally encounter back home. Normally, hiking views consist of city skylines or mountain ranges. Here, the views consisted of the ocean and beaches. You don't get those views in Colorado.



The third trail we hiked was that to Puento Escogito. The view at the end was beautiful, but not quite like that of the mirador trail. We noticed a ladder than led down to a rocky beach below. Half of us stayed to explore, while the other half headed down the path to the beaches. Looking back, I regret going down that ladder. When I got off the ladder, which was so high of the ground that I about fell off of it, all that was below were a ton of rocks and a little private beach that would be difficult to get there. I decided to take this as a challenge. I climbed over rocks, trying to not squish any of the hermit crabs chilling on them. At several points, I fell into the water, and at one point, my camera fell into the water and stopped working. Thankfully, I set it to dry out back at the hotel until we left and now it is working once again. When we finally made it to the private beach, I was over it. I was soaked, dirty, and my camera wasn't working. There was a tiny island that one could explore, but that consisted of even more rocks and struggle. I decided I was not about that life and headed back. Trying to get back up the ladder was a struggle because of my short stature, but when I got back up, I decided I was done with that kind of exploring for the day.

The private beach that almost killed me

Heading back down the trail to the fork in the road, I stopped at the non-swimmable beach along the way, Playa Gemelas. I took my tennis shoes off, put my feet in the sand, sat down on a rock, and wrote in my journal. After my less than pleasant experience at the private beach, I was ready to sit down and relax. I stayed their for awhile just enjoying the view and the sun. After some time, I put on my sandals and headed back to the fork.

Hide yo wife. Hide yo kids.
Hide everyone cause these raccoons be stealing yo stuff.

This time, I took the other path. My first, and little did I know last, stop in the park was Playa Manuel Antonio. It was a big, popular beach where tons of people were swimming and soaking up the sun. I laid out in the sun for awhile, making sure to keep my belongings near me. I had just seen some raccoons steal some food from some of the other visitors and I was not about to let them steal my belongings too. I headed into the ocean to cool off and swim, and then headed back to lay out in the sun. I did this for awhile, until it started to rain. Knowing I was over hiking for the day, and that I really didn't want to be caught in a downpour, I exited the park and headed back to the hotel with the guys after reuniting with them at the beach. 


Upon our return, we changed and got ready to go eat, since it was well past lunch time. I woke up my roommate so she could eat too and we went on a hunt to find food. We ended up going to a restaurant down the road right off one of the beaches and then explored some of the nearby shops. I ended up catching up with my other roommate at the beach, and went with her, my other roommate, and their new friend to the same restaurant we went to for lunch a couple hours earlier. Not hungry, I just chilled. We then moved to a really cheap bar. Having been in the sun all day, I was not about the alcohol life, so I chilled once again. I ended up heading to the store to get some snacks in case I did get hungry later that evening and headed back to the hotel. I was supposed to meet back up with them to go to the city, but I ended up getting distracted and sitting in the hotel watching tv. I was content.

We missed the sunset by like 15 minutes. Unfortunate.

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On Sunday, I spent the day talking a walk along the beaches and exploring the shops. I wish I would have been able to enter the Nacional Park again and finish the last hiking trail, but I was not about to pay an entrance for an hour or so. I walked around but didn't buy anything. We also stopped to eat lunch in Jaco. I wish I could write more, but it honestly wasn't that eventful.