Costa Rica is a fantastic country. In the Santa Elena area, there are two different cloud forest reserves that you can visit - Monteverde and Santa Elena. Monteverde is by far the larger and more popular of the two. In order to escape big crowds of people who tend to scare away wildlife, we opted for Santa Elena.
We took a 6:30am shuttle to the reserve and had to sign into the park in a log book. We were the first people to enter the park on that day! Most people in our shuttle had paid for a guide but we were on our own. We had learned a lot on our guided tour of the cloud forest in Nicaragua and our experience with the guided night tour left us with the feeling that perhaps we could guide ourselves on this one. We decided to hike the largest loop in the park, which was about 9 miles total. It was worth it.
On that trail, we had the park to ourselves and enjoyed great views. Behind those clouds on the left lies the famous Arenal Volcano. 
Before leaving the park, we walked to a lookout tower to try yet again for a glimpse of the elusive Arenal Volcano. It was a scary climb up but the vantage point was spectacular.
No Arenal though. (those darn clouds!)
After our week in Santa Elena/Monteverde, we decided to head over to Quepos to check out the nearby national park, Manuel Antonio. We have been really good with our budget so far so we decided to treat ourselves to the all you can eat sushi special at Tropical Sushi. 
I hadn't seen Tim this excited about a meal since Maria's mom cooked for us in Nicaragua!
It was spectacular. 
Manuel Antonio National Park is 7km from Quepos. All it requires is a mere 15 minute, 35 cent bus ride and you are there. Which is why we decided it would be a good idea to hike there in the heat and humidity. We are gluttons for punishment. But we did see this awesome lizard along the way!
The park is cool. It has nice hiking trails and pristine beaches. And lots and lots of animals! 
We saw 3 kinds of monkeys: the white faced capuchin monkeys (which is draped over the sign, above), howler monkeys and squirrel monkeys. 
We also saw a creature that we have been waiting a long time to see up close: a sloth! (the night tour sloth doesn't count) Once we found out where it was, we could go back and visit it anytime we wanted. It never moved. I think you will all agree that this sloth sighting beats the night tour sighting.
The raccoons were much like their Wisconsin counterparts: bold! One stole a woman's shirt on the beach and half the beach had to chase the thing so it would drop it from its mouth. Monkeys were also going after people's things. Fun times at Manuel Antonio!
We just hadn't had enough beach time in Costa Rica so we decided to take a bus to a small town called Uvita to take in some more sand and waves. The bus ride featured vendors who boarded with a cooler of ice cold coconuts. If you wanted one, they got out their machete, made a hole in the top of the coconut and then popped a straw into the hole. 
BOOM! Instant refreshing beverage. We couldn't resist.
A quick aside about bus transit in Costa Rica. It is much more organized than in Guatemala or Nicaragua but that doesn't necessarily make it easier. You are required to buy a ticket before you get on many of the buses, which makes things very orderly. This assures that everyone pays the same fare. There are also assigned seats on longer routes. And air conditioning. These are all good things. However, when you get to a bus station, you don't have someone approach you and ask you where you want to go and point you to the right place like you do in Guate and Nica. You stand in line and try to figure things out with the tickets sales person. Also, sometimes bus tickets sell out. You have to have the ticket in advance but you can only buy the bus tickets from their points of origin. For example, when we were in Santa Elena, we bought a ticket from Santa Elena to Nicoya. We knew that from Nicoya we wanted to immediately go to Quepos - Nicoya was just a hub for us. However, we could only physically buy the ticket from Nicoya to Quepos once we were in Nicoya. We managed to get the last two tickets for the time we wanted. Buses are also used as package delivery systems. For a nominal fee the bus accepts your package. People wait along the route and flag down the buses to collect their packages. It is quite efficient.
Ok, back to the story: Upon arriving in Uvita, we discovered that the place we were staying was a 40 minute walk from the beach. Not many hostels were closer, because it is also a part of a national park. We might have to do Costa Rica again with a car sometime in the future. There are so many cool little beaches that you could access if you had a car. We just can't afford taxis all the time so we had to walk there. (we did manage to hitch hike part of the way back). The beach was nice for a day but what we actually enjoyed the nearby waterfall more.
You could climb up the rocks and jump in. Which we did. Repeatedly. The height of the waterfall was about equivalent of jumping off a high roof. It was so refreshing!
What can I say? Beaches, cloud forests, waterfalls and spectacular wildlife. Costa Rica sure knows how to show you a good time.
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