Quepos/Manuel Antonio National Park
		Quepos is a quaint little town 45 minutes north of Dominical and a major hub for tourism. Quepos is the base for most people who are traveling to Manuel Antonio and since I was never able to figure out where Quepos ended and where Manuel Antonio began, I will just talk about them together. To get to Quepos, one must travel through mile after mile of palm oil plantations. The trees are quite beautiful and one can tell they are organized onto a plantation due to their existence in neat rows. Quepos is the most "civilized" village I have encountered since San Isidro de General. There's a major hospital and airstrip in Quepos in addition to hordes of resort hotels, adventure travel stores, eating establishments, and American-style sub-divisions. There is only one road that leaves Quepos, winding through the hills that head toward Manuel Antonio. Above Quepos, nestled into the hillside, sit dozens of high-price hotels catering to the jet-set who flock to Manuel Antonio in search of the perfect vista (and they find it.) The views from the hillside are breathtaking and the beaches on the other side of the mountain offer more of the same. At the end of the road to Manuel Antonio lay Manuel Antonio National Park. The park is the focus of most tourism in the area and costs $6 to enter. The beaches outside the park (Playa Espadilla) are like none I have encountered yet and inside the park they are idyllic. Playa Espadilla Sur and Playa Manuel Antonio are the two major beaches officially inside the park and both are wonderful. The beaches here are much more striking than what I have seen this week, with white sand and crystal clear waters. The wildlife is also quite impressive with hordes of monkeys, tons of hermit crabs, and an occasional iguana or two. Inside the park, we enjoyed both beaches and headed up to Punta Catedral (Cathedral Point), which was a lookout at the end of a peninsula that separated the two beaches. The views from Cathedral Point were even more breathtaking than those on Manuel Antonio's hillside. To get out to the lookout there was a half-hour hike through a mountainous pathway through dense jungle. It was a little tiresome to get out there and reminded me that I better up my workout duration when I get home to 30 minutes of jogging per workout instead of 15. Manuel Antonio is a neat place, partially because there are so many offshore islands that dot the area. Some of them are quite large (probably 10 or 15 acres.) They give a different appeal to the area and provide a unique depth to the sea. The waters are perfectly clear, like what one would see in the Caribbean, with beautiful shades of blue and turquoise. The blue waters, sandy white beaches, and bright green jungle palms provided eye-candy for my soul and brought sighs to my lips.
		Playa Matapalo
		North of Dominical and halfway between Dominical and Quepos lay Playa Matapalo (not to be confused with Cabo Matapalo which lay 200 miles to the south) Playa Matapalo is a stretch of abandoned beach 16 miles south of Quepos on the Costanera Sur and very hard to find. However, once you manage to get on the beach, you are instantaneously delighted. It's very similar to the beach at Uvita, miles of abandoned beaches with beautiful jungle laden mountains that drip into the sea. What sets Matapalo apart in my mind were the gigantic trees that we encountered there. I don't know what they were called, but the only other place I saw such large woods was in Corcovado.
	Costa Rica 2000 The Village of Dominical Cabo Matapalo Playa Uvita Playa Hermosa/Dominicalito Roca Verde Playa Matapalo/Quepos/Manuel Antonio Animal Life Sunsets What I learned on this trip

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