Manuel Antonio

Hello All: I’m currently back in Costa Rica for the next few days. Bill wasn’t able to come with me this time because he didn’t have time off work. We will be somewhere in January. Since Bill is not here, the pictures probably won’t be as good. He’s our picture taker. I am here with my brother and his new family, which has been a lot of fun.

I arrived yesterday after a very long travel day. Manuel Antonio is 3 hours from the San Jose airport and traffic was slow so I think it was at least 3.5 hours for me. It’s worth it though because we are staying at a beautiful resort right in the middle of the jungle. I’m currently on my balcony surrounded by trees and wildlife. I can see the ocean from the balcony too. This morning, there was a howler monkey somewhere right outside my apartment. I got up at 5am to listen to the monkeys and watch the sun come up. I took some video from the balcony but apparently I don’t have a plan with WordPress that allows me to post video.

This is the rainy season, so we have to plan activities in the morning because it usually rains in the afternoon. That’s fine though. Tonight it’s a soft rain, and we swam in the ocean for a while even with the rain. It has made everything super green. It’s lichee season here so there are fruit stands everywhere with piles of really good lichees. The mangos are good too.

Today, Brandon and Heather’s kids went zip lining. I’ve been zip lining a couple of times, and it’s fine, but not my favorite thing to do. Heather doesn’t like heights, so she didn’t want to go either. Heather and I walked around the very small town here and got groceries, then we swam for a while in the pool. We also ate at a falafel bar across the street. I love falafels. These were okay, but not the best I’ve had. I saw a baby sloth this morning and Heather and I saw another sloth and some monkeys by the restaurant. One of the monkeys had a tiny baby on her back. It was really adorable! Unfortunately, it’s hard to get good pictures of them.

It was a very pleasant day, but I’m wearing down. I’m going whale watching and snorkeling tomorrow. There are a bunch of humpback whales here with babies. I’ve talked to several people who have seen them, so I’m very excited about this. Snorkeling is supposed to be so so, but that’s fine. I’m not sure what the rest of the family is doing. They had a long zip lining trip today and they couldn’t decide what they wanted to do tomorrow. Having a free day to go to the beach is always nice and they may do jet skis. Hopefully I’ll have whale pictures tomorrow.