day 28: quepos and manuel antonio

we woke up at 8:30 and hopped on the bus to manuel antonio. our first stop was the parque nacional which is known as the most popular tourist location in the country. they have a ton of hiking trails, private beaches, waterfalls, and animals liek iguana, white face monkeys etc. before we even got in we saw tons of iguanas around and a few exotic birds. we didnt get a guide so we followed behind groups that had guides and tried to listen to any good info they shared. finally we got behind a group we thought was heading to the catarata (waterfall) and followed them out a gate. come to find out they werent going to the waterfall but were exiting the park. now in order to get back in we had to walk all the way around to the entrance which we thought wasnt worth it so we werent able to see any white faced monkeys. we grabbed lunch at a place on the water called marlin which had incredible chicken fingers with wing sauce. we would return to this restauraunt 3 more times over the course of 2 days. we rented some chairs on the beach for the day and relaxed, listened to music and just hung out for a while. later on we got in the water and watched a few of the surfers. for the night we headed back to mar y sombra where i rain into chloe a girl that studied with me in monteverde. steve and i hung out with her and her sister. around 1am we were lucky enough (note: sarcasm) to witness 4 or 5 ticos get in a fight. in college station they would immediately stop it and kick out the people but in central america apparently they allow people to settle their differences with a few punches. night ended around 2am after some salchichon and tortillas.