In order to get a true taste of what Costa Rica has to offer, it is said that you must visit both the Caribbean and the Pacific coasts, so my second stop in the country saw me moving over to the Pacific side to Quepos in order to explore in and around one of Costa Rica's most heralded National Parks: Manuel Antonio. I was still with the French lovelies, and still trying to educate them in good food and good humour! Sadly this would be our last little trip together before they were due to return to gay Paris ready for winter; I am still amazed and very happy to have found two great French girls to spend my time with, and I will miss them dearly. Right, enough sentimentality and onto the travel…

Upon arrival to Quepos we hunted for the only hostel that we knew of in town and settled ourselves in. The next day we went to the Manuel Antonio National Park and discovered there is actually a cheaper hostel very nearby to the park and the beach – just a word of advice should you be going there. To keep things a little cheaper we decided to go without a guide, and found that by eavesdropping on the groups that were in front/behind us we could do well without one. Even when they were not speaking in a language we understood, looking towards the places in the trees where they were pointing was sufficient!

During our time in the park we saw a sloth, many monkeys, raccoons and lizards amongst other not-so-exciting animals. I think my favourite was the large lizard that we found on the beach within the park who was sunning himself on a big rock before he crawled across the sand towards our resting spot. In response I decided to crawl along behind him as he made his way over, and I was then trailed by the French girls… I think this confused him a little, but he continued on his path until he met up with our sunbathing camp.

The beach itself was very nice, but a little overrun with hungry monkeys who kept coming and rifling through people’s bags in a hunt for food, but finding mainly iPods and cameras, followed quickly by being chased by the owners of these electronics! The sea was fairly calm and a great refresher, but unfortunately the snorkel and mask we had taken with us was rendered pretty useless as all we could see was sand and seaweed. Flo and I had hoped to replicate our snorkeling missions of San Blas, but were forced to make do with basking in the glorious sunshine instead… it’s a hard life sometimes.

In order to see the park there is a fair bit of hiking involved, mainly through jungle-like terrain which was very pretty. We decided to have our packed lunch after we sweated our way up the trail to a stunning viewpoint, which was a long, but totally worth-it challenge. At the end of our time in the park we went to the riptide-filled sea of the beach next door and battled against the huge powerful waves before taking the bus back to Quepos for our last supper together ahead of our final goodbye.