From Montezuma (the cool hippie artsy town), we travelled to Mal Pais, which is a very popular surfing spot. Our hostel had a free pancake breakfast, which we learned from some nice guy was even better when you buy a mango and a banana from the fruit stand to make your own amazing crepes. We didn't do any surfing, but had the best fish dinner of our whole trip, and did some swimming and sunset-watching there. The beach had all of these volcanic rock outcroppings, with small-but-deep tidepools full of fish and crabs. The rocks were also sharp, and well hidden in the ocean, so both of us got a little beaten up...
From Montezuma, we took the bus to the ferry we'd taken a few days back, to get to Quepos. Originally, we had decided to rent a house there, but our plans have changed and we're moving through this area more quickly.
Our first night there, we took a bus to a place called "El Avion" to watch the legendary sunset. Interesting side note- the place is called El Avion because, during the Iran-Contra affair, Ollie North financed this huge jet that was to be secretly given to the Nicaraguan contras. The airplane never got there, and sat in the Costa Rican airport for awhile, until these people bought it for $3000 and shipped it to Quepos, where it sits on top of a mountain, so tourists like us can have sunset cocktails next to it.
The next morning we bought a picnic lunch and headed to Parque Manuel Antonio, the most beautiful and gorgeous beach I've ever seen. We found a place to sit, and realized that a huge group of howler monkeys were eating in the tree next to us. I put my bag down so to get a closer look at them, and one of the monkeys ran right next to me! (We have photo documentation of this moment.) Gwen says that she thought I was trying to have a "Gorillas in the Mist" moment. I kind of was. But then, that same monkey jumped out of the tree and onto our bag of picnic lunch, just as Gwen yelled "grab the food!"
I didn't. Instead, I jumped back, kind of flapped my arms at the monkey, and made a mean-sounding hissing sound. (Who knew that's what I do when confronted with thieving wildlife?) First it rummaged through our bag, grabbed the chips, tried to open them, and put them down. Then, after I'd gotten a bit too close, it made some MEAN eye contact and bared its I'm-about-to-bite-you teeth. I totally backed off, and it stole our bag of fried chicken. The whole monkey family went off to eat our lunch without us...
The next day we went to La Playita, which is supposed to be the gayest beach in all of Costa Rica. We saw lots of speedo-clad men and drank a beer, and decided to try to go out to a gay bar that night. We asked on the bus for the person behind us to let us know when to get off at the bar, but then about 10 minutes later, he bursts out laughing and says (in rapid spanish to the woman next to him that only Gwen could understand) that he was supposed to tell us where to get off, and had completely forgotten, and this was his stop... She laughed, too. It was the last bus of the night, so we just hung out in town, which was also lots of fun!
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