*our* beach - manuel antonio

so pretty much every saturday and sunday most of us went to the beach. and why not - just a 15 minute bus ride away is the town of manuel antonio - where there is a nice public beach and a beautiful national park. and it only cost 105 colones (about 20 cents) to get there. the ultimate cheap weekend trip. plus lots of beach side restaurants and bars with 2 for 1 happy hour specials. :)

here i am surfing. it was my second attempt ever (i had tried it in hawaii too) - but it was a little bit different. in hawaii we were out kind of far and i actually had to paddle quite a bit and then was assisted with a little shove from the instructor. in manuel antonio we were about chest deep in the water and basically we were just lying on the boards and when the wave came the instructor would shove us off and tell us to stand up. kind of strange, but still fun. i definitely got more bruises on this attempt - but my arms and shoulders weren't as sore after.

this is one of the beaches inside of the national park. i actually only went to the park on one day (it cost $7 to get in!!!) during the whole time i was there. but the beaches inside the park were even nicer than the public beach. and the waves were a little gentler so you didn't have to swim out as far to not get knocked over while swimming around.

this is the group that i hiked around the park with - left to right: ryan the lion (there was more than one ryan), me, lesley, mark, and matt. basically all we were doing was hiking through the trails and finding beaches. every time we found a new beach we stopped for a while, had a swim, sat in the sun, and then moved on to the next beach. i did get a little sore from all that hiking around - i'm clearly not in the shape that i used to be and it's been a while since i've done any hiking. but the beaches were worth it.

this is one of the animals that was wandering around the national park. i'm not really sure what it is. it kind of looks like a raccoon and lemur mix. i can't remember what it was called in spanish. but it's not something i'd ever heard of before. kind of weird.

and here is a sunset on the public beach. what more can i say... :)