The journey from Monteverde to the coast was long and slow. We had a driver who didn’t speak English, was extremely cautious and never once went over 50! The first section of Road was quite rough and we followed an even slower pick up truck that built up a huge queue of traffic which, eventually, seemed to manage to overtake both us and the pick up!

When he finally turned off and the Road improved as we got lower down the mountains we came behind a gaucho herding a group of cattle down the road! After about 3 hours, we came across a number of shops and a restaurant at the side of the road by a bridge over the River Tarcoles. We pulled in and the driver told us to walk down to the bridge. Rather surprisingly there were about 15 crocodiles sunning themselves by the river. We had a weak tepid coffee each and the driver had lunch!

We then continued for another 2 hours to get to our hotel which is situated at the end of a narrow road on a promontory jutting into the Pacific. It is surrounded by rain forest meaning we get to see animals like iguanas and a number of birds.

This morning we were woken by Macaws at 7 am asking a din in a tree outside our room! After breakfast we had a dip in one of the pools and the got the shuttle bus that the hotel runs ‘into’ Manuel Antonio. We understood from reception that there were shops, restaurants and an ATM which I suppose there were - about half a dozen shops selling tat, two small supermarkets (one of which had an (empty) ATM) and a couple of bar/restaurants. The beach was opposite, so having had a drink we sat on the beach and paddled until the bus returned to pick us up a couple of hours later.

Tonight we are going to eat in the sushi restaurant.

Just digressing, the other day after lunch we were on the coach to one of our walking trails when Andy noticed his top lip felt strange! It would seem that, after having had a smoked trout salad for lunch, he had developed a ‘trout pout’! A few antihistamine pills later he recovered!

Am adding more pics

ADOG & LMAG xxxx