Me and Theresa hit the beach right away, we gave our other radio to Dan and Rhea so we could go separate ways and find each other again. We headed for the big rocks on the south part of the beach. We found out after being intercepted by a park care taker, that this was the beginning of the
Manuel Antonio National Park. We ended up paying out 10 dollars for the park fee as we intended on going in the park later in the day anyway. I saw some very large red crabs in the rocks on the little bluff in the distance and unfortunately didn't take any pictures.
We went back to our favorite place for food and had brushettas and some drinks! Here are a few Pictures of us having good times at the outdoor bar: (Mind the Picture Layouts because google blogger does not have a well designed layout to take many pictures in a tidy way)
We continued and kept seeing more aminals wherever we went!
Like Lizards
Little Crabs that hide in shells they find
We headed up a trail which we thought came to a supposed waterfall. It turned out that the maps they make are very confusing and not to scale.
On the Path we saw Squirrel Monkeys
And Capuchins.
As we continued up and up the path we came to an amazing canyon clearing:
Theresa was being silly:
At a certain point in the walk I was in a very different altered state of consciousness! I felt very vulnerable and felt very insignificant, I had these fears and bliss at the same time of being in a very unknown place, whith the idea of things that 'might hurt me'. I felt myself opening up to a divine, fertile and intense presence in this jungle. I was feeling like I needed to socially branch off and experience this state alone! Somehow I realized I had left my hat somewhere about a kilometer down the path by the viewpoint; I considered leaving it, but then realized how much it meant to me, being hand made and the most beautiful hat I had ever seen!
I ran back as fast as I could! I flew down the path and as I ran, the fear turned to wonder, and the wonder I felt helped me float in grace and extreme speed though the jungle. I felt bits of fear that my running would alert some fierce cat to chase me, but the fear subsided as I went with the trust, this took me to a deeper wild part of myself!! I found my hat!! then ran back to my friends keeping my gracefull breath and focus I had adapted!! Wow I felt so amazing after that little adventure!
We eventually got to the end of the trail that did not go to a waterfall, but to an awesome high up viewpoint where we could see the scale of the massive trees :
We also met an awesome dude called Brett along the path: (left) What an amazing guy! He really was in synchronism with everything we were co-creating! There was a cosmic force if felt like where we were clearly all ment to meet! He has so many of the same interests as me, and seemed to be intimately familiar with all the oddly obscure subjects I have been interested in!
The Bamboo in the park was very large! Here is Theresa for contrast to show the size of the bamboo:
Huge strong buildings can be mad with Bamboo this size! Later on we met a person at a n unexpected wedding who builds 3 story fancy houses with bamboo: (click on the picture to see it big)
Another Type of Monkey: Howler!
Some Canopy Views on the path:
There is some very strange digital looking effect that came from this tree canopy; it really looked this way and as the light would come through it created some kind of optical illusion.
Brett Getting some Photos:
Theresa was commenting on the bizzar shape of these falic looking things that come from the flower buds of banana plants! Also notice the the intricacy of Theresa's hat!
Brett found an unbudded flower from some plant:
Banana Spiders were common:
And these salamanders were always running on the forest floor
We reached the end of a path we were on which ended up at these gates on the other side of Manuel Antonio. We were all feeling very empowered and silly too.
Theresa making a weird face:
When we got back to Costa Linda Hostil we found Squirrel Monkeys everywhere in the trees:
One of these monkeys came to Theresa and was playing with her hand in a very curious way!
They even Climbed over the telephone wires with no problem:
It was a good day in Manuel Antonio! We ended up seeing 4 different kinds of monkeys in one walk! Later we went to Quepos to try and find this place called Vegan Haven near 'London Bridge' (from happy cow.com) but it didn't exist so we happily settled for vegan spagetti dinner, and had awesome sharings. I wondered if we would see Brett again, but it of course since our synchronization was so powerful we would meet him at a brunch place in another part of the country...
Awesome Good Times!!
We headed out in the afternoon making our way gradually to the Osa Peninsula. The main highway turned into dirt which was a lot of fun with the SUV! We were in awe of the cool sights including weird human planted forests of just palm trees. There were small areas where all the palm trees were dead for some reason. We came across another park which was an animal/butterfly sanctuary and a re-habitation facility.
