The following day we took the bus up to the Manuel Antonio national park and got there right when it opened at 7am. We hiked to the beach and a deer walked with us most of the way, it was pretty weird, she even let us pet her and was just chill with walking on the trail with everyone. We spent a ton of time at the beach there, which was awesome. The water was really warm and we swam and snorkeled all around and I took a nap on some rocks and the guys made a hermit crab "sanctuary" where they put the numerous and gigantic hermit crabs through tests of physical strength and intellect, the whole setup was pretty elaborate by the end. It was a pit in the sand with tunnels and leaf barriers and sticks in the sides for climbing on. All the crabs made it out in the end, they were pretty hardcore. We went on a hike after the beach and saw a bunch of animals that could only be described as deer-rabbit-pigs, they were little mammals that went through the brush on the ground and looked really cool. We also saw another anteater and more of the raccoon creatures, and 2 sloths. They were pretty cool, even though they were far away. On the way out of the park, a huge group of monkeys came out of nowhere and we spent a good amount of time just watching them. They were only a few feet away and were playing around with each other, they're so fun to watch. We also heard a bunch of howler monkeys and saw a lot of squirrel monkeys further up on the path. It was way cool.
We got back to the hostel just in time, as it started raining a ton right as we got inside, and we hung out and read for awhile before going to dinner. We got back to the hostel and played cards and drank guaro and beer afterward. We were playing with Dave's kama sutra playing cards which were pretty hilarious, learned some new positions like the "splitting bamboo" or "the cow"... funny funny stuff. Another note about the hostel and most other hostels we stayed at, the heated water in the showers is powered by electricity, so there are electrical wires coming out of the shower head doing something crazy to heat the water. It seemed sorta dangerous to me, combining the electric current with water and all, but I guess it works, and we didn't get shocked, so that was good. Although the temperature and water pressure were definitely unreliable and you never knew what was coming up next. It was an intense showering experience full of suspense and surprises (when will the scalding water hit next??)!
Next day we hung around Manuel Antonio for awhile and checked out the markets and the public beach there before driving back to San Jose. We also stopped at Playa Hermosa, the town next to Jaco where we should have stayed, it was a really nice beach with good waves and water that was not contaminated! What a concept, Jaco should get on that wagon. We also stopped at this random bridge where there were a ton of crocodiles hanging out, they look pretty creepy down there just floating around waiting for people to feed them from the bridge. I imagine that is why they hang out there in such large numbers, there were probably about 15-20 crocodiles down there. Right after that stop, we had another rental car adventure when Michael got pulled over for speeding (pulled over = policia in neon vests waving us down from outside the car). The cop was going to give us a ticket, but then found out we were tourists in a rental car, and said we had the convenient option to pay him cash right then at a reduced price and he wouldn't have to file a ticket. Shady as this was, we definitely took him up on this offer that was essentially a bribe, as we didn't want to have to deal with paying a ticket in a foreign country. It was cheap, less than $50, so split between us was not a big deal. So add bribing foreign cops to the list of rental car insanity.
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