¡Una dia fantastico!

People will tell you not to go to Manuel Antonio National Park, claiming that it issmall, crowded, and surrounded by chintzy development. Do not listen to them! These comments are true, but irrelevant. You can hike the trails and hang out on the beaches on one long day (we just crowded),but our day was superlative! The scenery (tropical forest next to the ocean with offshore rockformations thrown in) is superlative! We saw three species of monkeys today... howler monkeys staring at us, spider monkeys swinging high in the trees, and a troupe of white faced cappuchine monkeys... including a mom with a baby on her back. Sloths (very slow moving mammals that look like big, shadowy furballs in the trees) were everywhere, as were iguanas and many other lizards. We also saw a monitor lizard - this is the species that runs across water on two legs, looks like a small dinosaur, and has a tail that actually mimics the shape of leaves so it can hide in trees. This one jumped out of a tree, hung out close to an amazed group of people before scurrying off on two legs. We saw much more - flowers, many wild fungi, a toucan, woodpeckers, and a huge pelican flock over the ocean. We will get some shots up when we have a dependable computer. We are making our way south to the Osa Peninsula, the real wilderness of Costa Rica, where we will hang out for a week or so. We will stop halfway in between, after a 3 hour busride tomorrow, and stay in a town that sounds great, but whose name I can{t remember. We will be there one night, maybe two... if I have a computer I will check in. Internet cafes may get a touch spotty... but I am hoping not, will check in when we can. Oh yes, happy belated Summer Solstice!!