The first days of Costa Rica in Manuel Antonio

It makes me so sad to think about the earthquake in Ecuador. Such a beautiful country, with beautiful people where we had the best time of our travels so far. My love and my thoughts are with the people who are having to suffer from this. 

We were extremely, incredibly lucky to be at the airport in Quito when the earthquake hit. Our plane was delayed and we would've been in the air when everything started shaking all of a sudden. I didn't really understand what happened until I saw some people getting panicked and everyone stood up to stand by the walls. This was of course nothing close to how hard the earthquake hit in other places in Ecuador, so again, having to evacuate the airport for about 30 minutes and waiting a lot longer for our flight didn't feel like that big of a deal. I am surprised however, that we actually took off that night, but we did.

This is probably the longest journey I've ever had for such a short distance. The cheapest flight option to get from Ecuador to Costa Rica unfortunately meant that we had to do two stopovers in Colombia and El Salvador. About 24 hours after arriving to the airport in Qutio, we were finally at our hostel in Manuel Antonio and felt absolutely exhausted.

We took a public bus to downtown immidately when we got the airport in San Jose, had to get a short taxi ride to the bus terminal and from there we were able to take a bus all the way to Manuel Antonio on the central Pacific coast. After that journey we could just about enjoy the gorgeous sunset before we passed out in bed.

Manuel Antonio is a national park, just next to the little town of Quepos. Most people come here to enjoy the incredible wildlife around here. Of course that is something they take advantage of. Even though all of Manuel Antonio is a national park in itself (with beaches, hotels and restaurants and where we've seen monkeys running around and playing in the mango trees everywhere) there's an area where they say that you'll see most wildlife, and of course you have to pay loads to do so. The park is open from 7am-4pm for an entrance fee of $16, which felt like a rip off (especially since we heard afterwards that you can go on your own to another part of Manuel Antonio to spot wildlife for free) but I hope that this money goes to helping the animals and nature.

We spent several hours in here and saw so many different animals. It was such an amazing day here.

The highlight was of course when we were just about to leave, because the park was closing, and we saw this sloth just hanging of a tree branch, munching on some leaves. So cool!

There are so many different paths to go on in this tropical park and it's a great little hike. Because it is super humid I was also very grateful that there is beach access from the park so that we could have a nice break and get refreshed in the sea. I was pretty happy that we didn't meet a crocodile though.

Besides falling in love even more with animals, Manuel Antonio has been a great place to relax in. We've managed to find a good pool we can use to cool down in (because honestly, this heat is insane) in exchange for us buying a drink and we've found another place to have many games of pool aswell.

We also took a long walk down to a more hidden beach where the waves aren't as big as on the main beach. To get here we had to go through some jungle and spotted even more monkeys, you can probably spot sloths here aswell if you're lucky!

Of course everything's more expensive here than any other place we've been to in South America, which was a bit of a shock at first even though we knew that it was gonna be a lot different before we came here. We realised after buying a bottle of water for $3 that the tap water here is drinkable, and this will of course help us save some money. 

Even though Manuel Antonio is an animal lovers paradise, it is surprising that there is no vegetarian restaurant around here (yes okey it's a small place but still. I don't understand how people can come here to enjoy the wildlife and get amazed by all the animals, to then go and eat an animal..). So to save a bit more money, we've cooked the occasional pasta and beans ourselves a few times as the restaurants that do ecxist are mostly over our budget. 

But since feeling lazy, we have also found some loopholes. 

Gallo Pinto is a Costa Rican breakfast that is basically a mix of rice and beans. It is delicious, it is usually cheap in most places and it is usually vegan (just have to make sure it doesn't come with meat or eggs on the side). We found this little restaurants tucked in on the side of the main beach, where the gallo pinto was amazing and came with fried plantain (fried banana) and we ordered fries and avocado on the side which made this into the perfect brekky for me.

Our favourite place though, is of course the Falafel Bar. The food is cheap for Manuel Antonio, it's so filling and the place is vegan friendly.

We went back here several times because we simply couldn't resist it (so beware, it is addictive! It is the best falafel I've had in a very, very long time.). The falafel with pita bread comes with chips in it and costs about $7. We realised that it was totally unnecessary to order extra fries as the pita filled us up alone. They also make the best smoothies and since they are vegan aswell I just had to have the banana and date one and it was LUSH. 

Id go back to Manuel Antonio in a heartbeat just because of this love I have for the falafel at the falafel bar.

Oh, and how could I almost forget to mention?! One of the top 3 coffee places in Manuel Antonio serves soy- and almond milk! I did a little happy dance when I found out and ordered myself a big glass of vegan mocha frappucino. It was about 2000 colones and SO worth it. And yes, the coffee itself was absolutely amazing. Don't know what beats fighting the humidity; this or going for a swim!

The cafe is called El Patio de Cafe Milagro and has a really nice interior, but really grumpy staff unfortunately. I don't blame them for being grumpy when they have to work in this sweaty heat though.. I don't really care when they have coffee like this and give our free mangoes aswell!