Dima’s Corner

Since after I pretty burned up after our day three adventures, we stayed at the villa for the better part of the morning. It was still pretty cloudy so we decided to go ahead and drive down to Manuel Antonio to check out the white sand beach there and the park supposedly filled with monkeys and other creatures. We made it most of the way down there when we got waved over at a traffic check point. We were told that the only thing we needed was for Trevor to carry his passport with him while driving in Costa Rica, however the cops also wanted his driver license and my passport which we did not have. After 20 minutes of them pretending to calling someone to impound us and telling us that they will have to arrange some “alternate transportation” for us (ie arrest us), they finally took 20,000 colones ($40) and let us go. It was kind of funny how Trevor kept telling them that we would like to pay the “ticket” now and they kept dragging their asses until they took the money making a face like that was their first time.

Since we did not have enough cash on us for another bribe if we would get pulled over later, we turned around and went back to the villa. His dad said that he has seen monkeys up the river from his house so we decided to track up the river and try to find them. I admit, it was kind of scarry being in the middle of the jungle, tracking up the river with a storm coming, jumping from rocks to rocks trying to make sure we do not step on a snake or grab a scorpion. After a while we still have not seen any monkeys so we bailed on that idea as well and went back to the villa.

By that time it started raining so the beach was out of question. Joel said that he usually sees monkeys when he goes mountain biking and offered to drive us along his route to see if we can spot any. As we were leaving, the storm was starting to pick up and the power went out. We went up and down the hils around the mountain in the lowest all-wheel drive gear, in some cases with or against the streams of mud instead of the road, and there were a few times we did not think we were going to make it but it all worked out in the end. Needless to say, we did not see any monkeys because of the downpour nor could we see anything from the mountain. The would have been some great picture spots on a clear day… After our little adventure, we went to Jaco to grab some sushi and called it a night.