"I should have brought my goggles"

Sand in between my toes, check. Sunburn that will turn into a nice tan, check. Motion sickness on that badass catamaran I blogged about, check. Bee sting to the forehead, check.


We left for Manuel Antonio Friday afternoon right after our classes. (First, I grabbed a calzone from that guy). It was about a five-hour drive--NOTHING like the Lubbock drive, I assure you. Everything outside our windows was gorgeous and it didn't smell like cow manure. Not to mention we watched The Hangover and Friends the whole way there. At the halfway point, we stopped at this little place to pick up snacks and other munchies. I bought a bag of mini empanadas filled with pineapple jelly.

At about 6:30 we arrived at our hotel. We dropped off our suitcases and went straight to the beach. Afterward we had dinner and drinks at the hotel then hung around the pool until we were ready to go sleep in our (AIR CONDITIONED) rooms. It was really nice getting to know some of the girls more and we had a lot of fun together the rest of the weekend.

Before our 7:30 breakfast on Saturday, we managed to get a bazillion pictures of these super cute monkeys that were hanging around our rooms. They were everywhere.

By 9 am on Saturday we were sweating, waiting to get on the "Tom Cat," a catamaran from hell. Okay, I take that back. It was pretty sweet. The boat was huge, the alcohol was free, and the ocean was sublime. And for the first time in Sane José, we were surrounded with 100 percent sun. About an hour into the trip, we stopped to watch for dolphins. We were warned beforehand that we might not see any at all. Well, we saw tons. They were beautiful. It was really cool.


Unfortunately this is where my experience took a turn for the worse. At this point, I had less than one drink in my system. So when I started getting queasy, I knew it had to be motion sickness. There were a good handful of us that weren't feeling too hot though, so at least we were in it together. By the time they started passing out snorkeling equipment, I was permanently bent over my knees praying for the spinning to go away. But I mustered up some strength, sat up, put on those flippers, and hopped into the water. It was incredibly refreshing and instantly I felt better. And I got to see even more aquamarine life--tons of fish!

For the bumpy ride back, I found a nice spot to take a nap in. It ended up being in the sun, hence the red skin. By the time I woke up, we were back at the dock preparing to unload. Huge relief. And we were back by 2:00, so we spent the rest of the day shopping at this cool little souvenir market and swimming at the beach. It started to pour while we were in the ocean, so naturally we wanted to stay in. :) So fun! And then I got stung by a bee. Not so fun.


That night me and some girls went out to dinner and got to the restaurant just in time before happy hour was over. Fresh calamari, juicy steak sandwich, and two strawberry daiquiris. 16 bucks. So far, that was the first time I spent more than 8 dollars on food, and that still isn't bad.


The same adorable monkeys came to our Sunday breakfast. This time, they got even closer--taking bananas directly out of our hands. Later we went to the National Park of Manuel Antonio. We took a neat 30-minute walk through all sorts of greenery. Further up on the left you can see that we even spotted a couple of sloths. At the end of the trail we got to swim in this private little cove that had an even prettier beach than the one we'd been at all along. It was a perfect ending to the weekend.