Manuel Antonio

This weekend we finally had a free weekend so 11 of us decided to go to Manuel Antonio for the weekend. It was definitely one of my favorite weekends and I wish we could have spent more time there! Friday night we celebrated Mariah’s birthday and went out to a yummy dinner (I had a hamburger, I was nervous it was going to be unrecognizable but it was actually pretty good!) and I tried a Mai Tai to drink, which I think is my new favorite! I’m gonna come back nice and chubby with all the yummy food I’ve been fed here! My mom is always trying to get me to try new food or eat “just one small serving” as she always says. Anyways, then Mariah wanted to go dancing so we went to a club for “ladies night” which was super fun too, we all danced together and enjoyed our free time! There weren’t many people there so they let us go in the reserved room behind ropes (so fancy!) and we kind of just closed the curtains and had fun without creeper guys approaching us all the time.  I am so glad we got to celebrate Mariah’s birthday together because her actual birthday was this past Thursday and we had a Spanish exam which is no way to celebrate!

Saturday we got up early and headed for the Manuel Antonio Park and we hung out on the beach for a few hours. I even went up to my knees in the ocean J A few of us headed out ahead of the group so we could go to the store, and we saw a sloth up close! It was about 3 feet from us and he was the cutest thing ever! I have been wanting to see a sloth up close since I got here and I can’t believe I finally got to see one. They only come down from the trees about once a week to use the bathroom so we were super lucky. I took so many pictures my camera died on me. We haven’t had much down time since we’ve been here so we decided to order pizza, and hang out all evening at the hostel. My “thing” here has become doing highs and lows whenever we’re together (when you go around the circle and say the best part of your day and the lowest part of your day) and I was happy that we got to do them as one big group. It has become my favorite part of our trips because we all get to spend time together talking about what we did that day. It’s become so popular that sometimes people have to remind me that we haven’t done our highs and lows yet!

Sunday we got up and everyone split up into little groups, one group went horseback riding, one went parasailing (which I really want to do!) and a few of us just walked around Manuel Antonio and did some souvenir shopping which I really enjoyed. Two of my friends and I spent almost 2 hours in a store walking around and bargaining for gifts…I was glad I had my friend Ashli with me because I’m too shy to bargain with the store owners! It was so nice to walk around the town and not have to stop every 10 feet to hear our professors history and ecology lectures, I have the hardest time concentrating with all the things going around me.

I keep thinking how hard it’s going to be when we return to the United States and I won’t be able to see everyone everyday. We spend so much time together and I’m going to miss it! Our trip will be half way over in just a few weeks, but it feels like I’ve only been here for a few weeks. We’ve done so much but there’s still so much left I want to do, but at this rate the semester will be over before I even make a dent in my list!