Costa Rica

I will start off this post by saying: Leaving Manuel Antonio last Saturday was the hardest thing I've had to do in a good long while. (For you Twitter-users, you might agree that I have #firstworldproblems.)

If you don't already know about it, and if you're interested in the details, Google "Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica" and feel free to read all about it (I will spare you my sketchy account of its facts). I will tell you that, even though I'd been there before on a cross-cultural trip with my university over ten years ago (!), it has made its way back to the top of my "Prettiest Places in the World" list (which I've never officially made). In addition to its beauty, Manuel Antonio contains some of the friendliest people I've met while traveling, which is enough to make any trip a great one, no?

The wildlife and natural beauty of this place are absolutely, positively stunning (it's like living in a leafy-green zoo!) and I'm sorry to say my shoddy photography didn't do them an ounce of justice. Now, with that little disclaimer out there, here are a few tidbits from our trip:

Being the notoriously lazy travelers we are, Ken and I spent 95% of our days lazing around on the beautiful beaches...

...and occasionally peeling our vitamin D deprived selves out of the sun to go on treks through the rainforest...

We spent some time searching for friendly monkeys (they clearly weren't hard to find)...

 ...avoiding the scary, confrontational ones...

...and looking for other wildlife we could startle away....

(Ken accidentally stepped on the tail of a fairly large iguana while we were hiking one day, and the incident left all three of us shrieking and running for cover.)

We ate loads of really good food....

(I always say we eat our way through the countries we visit, which in turn makes me think of the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It's a little different, but the mental picture adequately sums up our piggishness.)

We each consumed half our body weight in Costa Rican coffee and mango smoothies...

(which were delicious, but--surprise!--did not bode well for our stomachs)

...and we spent a lot of time watching some of the prettiest sunsets our eyes have ever seen....

As I have previously stated, I have hundreds of other pictures I may post at a later date, but I'm not going to lie: It's getting a little depressing sorting through the beautiful, warm photos of Costa Rica while sitting in our apartment, bundled-up to the nines, staring out the window at a frigid minus thirteen degrees. (I just shuddered a little at the thought.) 

That little bit of complainy negativity aside, I'm so, so glad we had the opportunity to go to Manuel Antonio this year. It was truly one of the best trips we've ever taken and we're already making plans to go back again in the near future. 

(Let me know if you want to come, too!)