Corcovado Adventure Part I: Manuel Antonio and Uvita

Sorry this is so late, my pictures took all day to upload!  I'll admit I'm a little distracted because I started watching House of Cards on Netflix and it's damn good, so I apologize in advance if I'm not making any sense.  Okay, got my rations (pretzels and peanut butter), so I'm ready for the long haul.  Here goes nothing!

On Tuesday, we left our comfortable, air-conditioned home on a mission to trek through the far reaches of The Osa Peninsula (southern Costa Rica).  The Osa Peninsula is far less modern and far more jungle-y.  I don't know what we were thinking.

PART I: Manuel Antonio and Uvita

We left home around 8am to catch a bus to Quepos (about an hour away).  We were bright eyed and bushy tailed (NOT):

Here is part of the town of Quepos:

and here is the bus station:

I obviously didn't think much of Quepos.  From Quepos, we transferred to another bus, which took us to Manuel Antonio National Park (15 minutes).  While Quepos is a relatively large city, I think most people simply go to hit up Manuel Antonio.  It is the most visited national park in Costa Rica, yet also one of the smallest.  I think it's popularity stems from the fact that it's easily accessible both geographically (centrally located) and physically (easy hike).

So, the bus dropped us off in Manuel Antonio Village (touristy town area near the park) and we walked about 10 minutes to the park entrance.  Here's the beach in Manuel Antonio Village:

Pretty!  Here's the walk up to the park:

And we're in!  

Spiky tree:

Then we saw a white-faced Capuchin monkey family:

Can you find the baby???

This is how far away we were:

OMG they were adorable!  We also saw a cool lizard.  Can you spot it?

Then we reached the beach:

Postcard pic:

Coolest Monitor Lizard ever (yes, I was terrified, but he came right up to me and was super sweet):

Someone fed him a piece of mango (it made me mad because you're not supposed to feed the animals, but people are idiots):

Raccoons are the same as back home:

They saw the lizard get some mango, so like the opportunistic creatures they are, they had to get a piece of the action.
We swam and lounged on the beach awhile before continuing our walk.  This was a lookout (we were too lazy to climb up (it was HOT!)):

Another spiky tree:

Then we saw a sloth, but we didn't have binoculars or a telescope (which all the guides carry), so here's the best shot I could get:

Yup, it's bupkiss!  WAY up there are a couple sloths, and we got a guide to point them out, but since we never paid the guide to give us a tour, we couldn't get any telescope action.

Overall, the park was beautiful and the hike was harmless (although HOT!).  We didn't see bunches of animals (probably because we didn't want to pay for a guide (about $25 per person), but we still thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  The beach was the highlight, so pretty with white sand (but somewhat rocky).

Around 2pm, we left the park, got a smoothie in Manuel Antonio Village and grabbed the bus back down the hill to Quepos.  It's a gorgeous drive:

One of the restaurants had a plane in it!

Once we hit Quepos, we got something more substantial to eat.

The salads in Costa Rica are great, everything's super fresh.  However, if you're a fat-ass like me, you want more than oil and vinegar for dressing.  It's a little disheartening to have an amazing, crisp, fresh salad and nothing good to dress it with.  I guess that's why they're all so skinny, that and the sweating profusely after walking a block down the street.  

Our restaurant had a mural, which was interesting:

On first glance, it looks like a couple on their wedding day.  Aww!  Congrats to the happy couple!  Upon closer examination, we noticed:

WTF?  That's hilarious!  This mariachi guy just fell off the boat and the band plays on like nothing is happening (kinda like the band in Titanic).  Great mural, I want this guy to paint one in my house.

Then we waited a million years (or 2 hours) and hopped on another bus (we're getting good at bus-hopping) to go to Uvita (about an hour and a half).  I took some pictures of small towns on the way.  Here are some typical homes:

Most neighborhoods had huge soccer fields with houses surrounding it.  All my pictures came out blurry because of the stupid bus, so this was all I could salvage.

Since we had to wait practically our whole lives to catch the bus to Uvita, we didn't arrive at our hostel until around 7pm.  The hostel was called Flutterby House and it was incredible.  Most of the rooms are tree-houses.  I tried to take some pictures, but it was dark.  Here's the common area:

If you go up the ramp, you get to the "living room" and kitchen.  Living room:

Beyond this was the kitchen:

Dining area:

They have a small "restaurant" and each night they serve a different entree.  They also have several breakfast items served every day:

We were starving and Tuesday night was fish tacos:

I got grilled and Aaron got beer-battered (both yummy, but battered was better, of course).  We even had a friend join us for dinner:

They also have a bar, open until 10pm.  

It was a super fun place with a really cool vibe.  Everyone was nice and having a great time.  Then we went to our tree house.  It was too dark to take pictures, but here's our front "patio":

Here's the map of the place (the red is leading to our room-The Penthouse!):

They had some interesting artwork:

It's really tripping me out.  It looks like a brain.  I don't get art, but I think I like it.  The bathrooms were artistic too:

Everywhere you look, there's something neat to see.  They had a little library section with tons of books, they had a small stage used as a yoga studio and tons of garden space.  It's a really pretty and yet, fully functional place.  Despite all that, it wasn't lost on me that it's very gimmicky to sleep in an artsy hostel with tree houses because nothing was cheap.  The tree house and the food were both expensive.  We grabbed the last "house" available (because we got there so late) and it was $50 per night!  Overall, super amazing experience, but you get the experience you pay for.  We wouldn't have done it if we were broke and just needed a cheap place to sleep for the night.  We did it for the tree house feel, which was rather special.  I'll never forget the night we got to sleep in a tree house in Costa Rica.

More pictures tomorrow!  Stay tuned for round 2!!