(For people wanting to embark on a similar adventure, complete with Ticos, it{s worth noting that nacionales get a significant discount on park entrance fees, so while Manuel Antonio cost me $10 to get in it only cost the boys $4 each, which seems right to me.)
Immediately on entering the park the tour guides start to hit me up, but I said no because of the cost ($20-person). It took about 15 minutes of passing people with guides, using large monoculars to look at wildlife that I couldn{t see, before I wheedled my way onto a monocular to see a sloth ("a sloth?! I{ve never seen a sloth - can I look?") and paid my $20 to join an American couple and their guide, Henry.
Henry showed us lots of things I never would have seen myself, including this mama wolf tarantula curled up in a leaf with her hundreds of tiny babies.
He also knew lots about plants which I loved. The boys got a kick out of looking at the sloths too, especially Marcos, and once Henry realized the 4 of us were a package deal and that they were Ticos, he was totally cool about it.
Henry
When we get to Playa Manuel Antonio ("3rd beach") we say goodbye to Henry and find a lovely spot of soft sand in the shade of almond and coconut trees. I get in the water first, then Cesar and Jose, then Marcos. The boys race and frolic in the clear, aquamarine water. I have never seen more beautiful beaches than here in Costa Rica, a seemingly endless array of stunningly beautiful beaches, each different, some better than others for swimming but all stunningly beautiful.
I decide to modify a saying of my folks: they say, "we can sleep on the plane." I say, "we can sleep on the beach."
Being an American and a jew and myself, I start thinking in shouldas and couldas: I shoulda gotten here sooner, I coulda had more time...but it{s so much more fun being here with friends, and I couldn{t be here with them now without the car having broken down and having to spend all that time in Nicoya. So I push those thoughts out of my head and sure enough, they never come back for the rest of the trip. Regret is so NOT pura vida.
Marcos sends me to find a couple of rocks and shows me how to gently bang open the almonds. The nuts are small and moist and taste only vaguely like the hard almonds we get at home.
Cesar suggests we walk further into the park to see some more beaches - Cesar loves beaches, when he says "playa" he chews the Y so it sounds like something delicious. We walk on and they ask a young park employee about the trails. The young man says something about the trail being closed because it{s very steep and slippery and dangerous, I catch something like "no recomendido", and we{re off, of course.
As we head down the trail, which is indeed very steep and slippery and washed out in places but on which ropes have been placed to hang on to, a young turista starts following us down the hill. I say hi and she says she{s been wanting to come down this trail all day but didn{t want to do it alone so, when she saw us head this way, she followed. Her name is Jill and she{s from California, of course, and I invite her to join us.
What we found at the bottom was one of the most exquisite beaches I"ve visited in Costa Rica: Playa Puerto Escondido, a completely solitary beach in two parts, separated by a rocky point that{s impassable at high tide. Cesar led the way and the rest of us scrambled across, Jose and Marcos gallantly helping Jill across.
We{re all hungry, we skipped breakfast and don{t have any food with us, so Cesar knocks down a dozen young coconuts for us to eat. He cuts diamond holes in them with a pen knife, and we drink the water, which is light and sweet and refreshing. Then we break them open by throwing them against the rocks, rip through the tough fiber with our teeth, and spoon out the gooey jelly that is the baby coconut meat. It tastes like jism.
We spend an hour or so on the beach, swimming in the limpid water, then climb back out of Playa Puerto Escondido and part ways with Jill, walking back along the beach to the car.
We head to Dominical for the night, where I get a great arroz con mariscos at a soda called Junior, quite possibly the best meal of the entire trip, and where we finally buy a surfboard strap so we can get the board out of the car. We get a nice airy cabina for just $20 for all 4 of us, with a private shower and a nice front porch with hammocks. Cesar and Marcos have to share a double bed (una cama matrimonial), but they{re practically brothers and it doesn{t faze them.
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