Manuel Antonio, Quepos, and Awesome Pizza!!!

Today we took a day trip to a local national park, Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio. It is a short ride away from Quepos, which we arrived in yesterday. There is a beach inside the park, and while we were at the park this lizard made sure nobody touched our towel. The park is a little more tourist-ified than some of the more pristine places we've seen on our travels (power lines going across it) but it is still a very well kept area. We saw numerous types of monkeys, deer, various birds and lizards, mapaches, sloths, skinks, fish, and many other animals. Entrance to the park is ten dollars per person, a bit steep on our budget, and then there's the usual group of pleasantly agressive tour guides charging between twenty and fifty dollars on top of the entrance for their services. We decided to do it self-guided which turned out to be a good decision. It seems that the guides will point something out and then everybody crowds around them, so it's easy to overhear and look where they're looking if you don't see something right away. That said, we had no trouble finding tons of wildlife, even some the guides missed. Additionally, the beach in the park is really nice, and has warm water, although it seemed a little murky.
To catch you up a bit, since we last blogged, we spent some more time in San Jose. We went to the a musuem which showcased a lot of pre-Colombian gold as well as all the currency that has been used in Costa Rica. Many of the coffee plantations used to pay their workers with what basically look like poker chips and could only be used at the plantation's general store. It also went throuh the history of the various currencies and the meanings of some of the symbols used. We also took a day trip to Orosí which is a small town in a very lush valley. We originally went to go to some hot springs, which turned out to be rather cold and basically just an expensive public pool, then we had to practically turn San Jose inside out to find the right bus stop to get home.
Today, after a long day of hiking through the national park and working up quite an appetite, we went out in search of an affordable dinner. We first went to a bar/restaurant down the street from our hotel, looked like they had a good deal on something of a sampler platter for two. However, upon walking in, we realized that there were a half dozen prostitutes hanging out, and we were probably in the wrong place. We continued wandering around and found a pizza place situated behind/northwest of the bus station called Miguelito's, which had some interesting items on the menu. We went with the tex mex pizza and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they make it in a style I enjoy with the toppings under the cheese so the cheese gets nice and crispy. It was delicious!! Turns out Miguelito is actually an ex-pat named Todd, but Miguelito goes over easier with the local crowd. Anyway, delicious pizza, more affordable than the other pizza joint in town, and good service too. Unfortunately we didn't have our camera with us, so here's a picture of a monkey eating, I imagine we looked something like this tonight with our pizza. Tomorrow we are off to Dominical to relax for a few days before heading to Panamá, we will catch up with you later!