Tag Archives: Gavin

Day 9: San Jose

On Monday morning, Gavin and I woke up super early for the long drive to San Jose. It was actually quite nice driving around the country roads in Costa Rica.

Once we got to the city, Gavin and I parked the car and immediately found somewhere to eat. Gavin really wanted to go to a McDonald’s so we did. It was interesting. My meal came with pineapples!

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We walked around for what seemed like forever.

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We saw a lot of old buildings. It was a really bright, sunny day; which translated to multiple applications of sunblock. Luckily, we both wore hats.

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Gavin took so many rolls of film. I caught some good photos, too- both with my film and digital cameras.

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We stayed in the city for several hours.

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On the way back, we saw the sunset. It was really nice so we stopped on the side of the road to watch it.

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When we got back, Gavin and I ate our leftovers from the night before and packed our bags for the flight back home tomorrow. We also saw a crab outside.

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Day 8: Surfing y Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio

Gavin and I took surfing lessons through Dante’s Water Sports.

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Photo by Gavin

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Photo by Gavin

It was Gavin’s second time surfing ever; my first.

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After surfing, we walked down the road to Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio.

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Armed with a simple map, we followed a trail through the woods which was a large path- big enough for a vehicle- that eventually became smaller trails.

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We saw a sloth (outside the park), lots of monkeys, lizards, birds, another iguana and some funny looking raccoons. After some walking, we came to the beach. It was so beautiful.

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We set up shop there for awhile and took a swim in the clear, warm water.

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Suddenly, we turned around to see the raccoons walking toward our stuff. Gavin and I raced out of the water to retrieve it all. So we decided that one of us should be in charge of sitting with our stuff.

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We left that beach, hiked a bit more and came across a second one. It was really gorgeous and seemed even more sunny.

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The walk back was long but luckily we found enough interesting wildlife and things to keep ourselves entertained.

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Once out of the park, Gavin and I were to thankful to have found one of our favorite fruit drink places: Batidos Cosechas. We were exhausted, probably really dehydrated and had already drank all the water and Gatorade that we had brought with us on the trail. The juice was amazing and pretty much brought us back to life. We walked back to our surfing school on the beach. I sat on the sand while Gavin went out to take more photos.

Then we jumped into the car and went looking for food. It was much later in the day by then.

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We stopped at a local fast food place on the way back and (painfully, in broken Spanish) ordered our food.

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We were both really tired. Gavin watched the Giants game in Spanish.

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I went to sleep around seven. (That may have been sun poisoning or I was just really tired. Regardless, I woke up the next morning very refreshed.)