Our second day in Costa Rica started bright and early! I went to bed at 8 the night before so when the alarm went off at 4:30 the next morning I was feeling pretty good. However, the guys stayed up drinking chicha so waking up a few hours later on a stomach full of the sugar beverage made it a little rough for them.
We pushed out of Zapatón around 6 in the morning thinking it would take us a few hours to get to Manuel Antonio. After 12 hours of rain, it finally stopped as we were leaving town and we had a beautiful view of the sun rising behind the mountains. We drove along the dirt road, through the jungle for about an hour. Once we got on a gravel road it was an incredible feeling. It was so quiet and smooth. I've never paid so much attention to infrastructure before!
View from the back of Mason's house at 5am
Sunrise on the drive
Horse in the road
We arrived at the hotel at 7:30 in the morning since the drive only took us 1.5 hours. We were anticipating closer to 3 hours for the drive since we were unsure of how the roads would be, especially if there were any mudslides from the night before.
We stayed at La Posada which was less than 10 feet from the entrance to Manuel Antonio National Park. It was the closest hotel to the park and the rooms all faced away from the street, so the location was great and noise was never an issue. The walk to the beach was about 5 minutes - there were definitely closer hotels, but we were pretty happy with our location.
We spent the entire day relaxing and exploring the Quepos/Manuel Antonio area. We were planning on doing a park tour the following morning so we spent most of the day on the public beach. It got so humid by midday that it became a little bit unbearable so we decided to head for a late lunch and then relax back in the air conditioned hotel room.
Heading back to the beach for the sunset
If you ever go to Manuel Antonio, lunch at Sancho's is a must! There are 4-5 tables and a few bar stools so there is very limited seating. There isn't air conditioning and it can get pretty hot waiting for your food to come out. They're known for their wet burritos - we loved it so much we went back two times in three days!
It was super easy to get to Sancho's and the surrounding area by bus. We relied on public transportation from this point on since we only had a rental car for one day.
We stopped by Cafe Milagro next to Sancho's to get coffee to take home for our families. Unfortunately we were way too full from our wet burritos to stay at the coffee shop longer than the time it took to purchase the coffee!
Our bungalow at La Posada
Manuel Antonio Park Entrance
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