Day 306: On to Manuel Antonio

Today, we took a noon bus to the village of Manuel Antonio, conveniently located right next to the national park of the same name. Due to some monetary mis-planning on my part, I had to run around in the vicinity of the bus terminal to find an ATM... about thirty minutes before the bus left. So I literally had to run - and find out that I'm most definitely out of shape after ten months of traveling. All worked out well, however, and shortly after we were on our way. The bus had sensationally little leg room - perfectly adequate for the average Costa Rican, I'm sure, just not for me - but apart from that, the ride was rather uneventful.

In Manuel Antonio, we decided to stretch our legs for a little while and walk down to one of the beaches close to the village. As we found out, this particular beach wasn't the most stunning in the area, but it was still beautiful - and thanks to it being the rainy season, it was almost empty, too :-)

All around Manuel Antonio, the jungle reaches right up to the ocean, and so there was nice scenery to discover along the entire walk, for example these beautiful flowers (that, unfortunately, are unknown to me):

On the way back, our timing couldn't have been better: just when we had climbed far enough to see the ocean again, the sun started setting and created a stunning red sky, covering the entire western part. It never fails to amaze me how fast the sun sets once it is close to the horizon. If we'd been just two minutes later, the sun wouldn't have been visible anymore. But, being lucky, we witnessed the entire thing and stayed for a while watching the red glow slowly change.

In the evening, we decided to be lazy and eat in the Vietnamese restaurant right next door to the hostel. Wow, that was some excellent food! After this, I'm definitely looking forward to the Asian part of my trip - due to start in October :-)