Best Western Hotel Kamuk Quepos

... to admit any of it as an American). It was quite a lively joint, although in every way possible a tourist destination. The food was delicious, I had a chicken sandwich (what? Come on I've had ENOUGH rice and beans) with honey mustard. Generally, I consider honey mustard to be underappreciated. This honey mustard appeared to be... honey. It was about 90% honey, 5% mustard, 5% other (this is Costa Rica). Strange, but well within the range of delicious ...

... apt), then we get to a beach and there are capuchin monkeys casually swinging through the trees at the fringe of the jungle barely a metre or two from the picnickers in the shade. The rest of the group wanted to go back the same day but I wasn't going to resist the opportunity to explore more of the jungle and hopefully spot the elusive squirrel monkey, so decided to walk back to Quepos, spend the night there, and make another foray into the park the next ...

... can be wrong. The next bus is at 3:30pm so we had 2 hours to kill, and a trip to McDonald for lunch was a foregone conclusion. At 3:30 the dirty old bus left on time for Quepos, through the newly paved mountain road, we arrived at Dominica just before sunset, a surfer gathering sort of place. We continued on. The road all the way to Quepos is now unpaved and very bumpy. In the darkness we moved at a turtleīs pace ...

... n coleccionamos caracoles en la arena. Cuando nos cansamos de estar en el sol salimos de la playa y fuimos al mercado. El mercado en Quepos es gigante. Vimos muchas frutas desconocidas. También comimos unas muy frescas.

... kinds of lizards, one snake (brown rat snake?), white-faced capuchin monkeys, a species of giant rodent (i forget the name), numerous birds, one crocodile, and tons of butterflies. After we got around the point we ended up on Manuel Antonio beach--absolutely gorgeous beach in a secluded bay covered in green stones and white coral ...

... after being cloudy most of the day. We've had a lot more rain than they usually get this time of year. A friendly, fun family from Boston (Kristin, Robert, Madison & Braden) moved into the unit next to us. We spent good times during their stay sitting on our patio consuming cervezas & wine and talking about life. On Wednesday we joined them at Manchado's for dinner where the food and my Mojito were excellent. On Thursday Ted ...

... the water was so blue and inviting, except that when we went to go in we realized it was high tide...so the waves were huge and there were a lot of surfers...I thought about trying it but...it looks really difficult. So we just kinda waded in the ocean. It was just so nice to relax...

... and it's the low season, but I can imagine that it gets pretty full the rest of the time. There are a lot of hotels around the place. We had a great day though and tonight we are going to a bar that's in an aeroplane (a bomber, C-123 perhaps?!). I think that it was supposed to go to Nicaragua- a present from the US, but then when the war broke it got stuck in San Jose, only for some enterprising person years later to transport it here to use as a bar....

... Fortuna to go check out one of the most active volcanoes. The weather didnīt cooperate that night so we didnīt get any night views, so we just bought some whiskey and played some dominoes, but we were able to see it clearly the next day. We were able to see lava spewing out every few minutes. The guys went and did some zip lines and then we all crammed in again for another lovely ride to San Jose. San Jose - This was the departure town for everyone ...

... as well. There is also a nice show about the history of the park in the visitor center. We did not see anything until 2pm where the clouds suddenly decided to move away and the sun came out. We had only 30min to go back to the crater and back to the bus stop. I almost missed the bus for this photo. But I guess it worth it. We got back to San Jose around 4pm and spent the night shopping and walking on the paseo walkway.