Manuel Antonio and Quepos, Costa Rica

Please see the first post on Costa Rica for important details about this post.

Our first destination outside of central Costa Rica was Manuel Antonio, primarily known for the national park that shares its name. That deserves its own post, and this one will concentrate on the town and the neighboring town of Quepos.

To get to Manuel Antonio, we took a crowded, several hour bus trip that would've been nice except for the fact that Costa Rican buses are built for much shorter people than myself. On the other hand, the fact that it cost $4 was rather nice. The road to Manuel Antonio is actually pretty good, requiring one to go over only a few rickety bridges but at least lacking the potholes that some of the roads had.

One problem with Manuel Antonio was the lack of ATMs at the time (and possibly still), which meant that everything had to be paid for with cash. The other problem with the town is the lack of good tourist facilities and the fact that the locals know they can charge as much as they want and get away with it.

The town next to Manuel Antonio (which actually does have ATMs and the like) is Quepos. There's nothing extraordinary about Quepos, but it did have a very nice restaurant called Bar/Restaurante Quepos. Everything was good and inexpensive there, especially the fruit drinks, which were delicious and cheap. Going between Quepos and Manuel Antonio is an adventure, consisting of narrow roads and lots of pedestrians. Driving here would've been horrible - it was bad enough in a taxi and bus.

Manuel Antonio itself was rather uninteresting, but it did have a nice beach. Not quite as nice as the ones inside the park, but still rather good.