We asked for Adobe car rental to deliver our car at 9:30 am. (We used MyTanFeet to rent the car and were very happy we did as we saved a little money on the rental and they helped coordinate the car drop off and were helpful when we had problems.) We were pretty much packed and ready to go by 9:00 am. I went out to wait for the car at 9:20 and the car was already there. We did some paperwork and Angie mentioned to me that she thought the tires didn’t look good. There was nothing we could do about it at that point so off we went. First stop was a cup of coffee at the Monarca – a cafe in Manuel Antonio with adjacent butterfly garden.
We then headed north past Jaco and on towards Puntarenas. We were coming up a hill when we heard a noise. It took us a few seconds to realize it was coming from our car and then a few more to find a place to pull over, We had a flat tire! My first one while driving. I put the donut on and then found that there was an Adobe Car Rental office in a resort in Puntarenas. The agent there was nice, eventually led us to a garage where they found the puncture. The initial plan was to patch it, but they eventually decided to out a new tire on. They did that and charged us $135 for the tire. We now need to try to get reimbursed from our credit card.
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The brief view of a quetzal that Angie was able to capture.
On Wednesday, May 1, we went to Manuel Antonio National Park. We booked an early morning tour through Airbnb with Waaco tours and were very happy that we did. The guide was very knowledgeable and we saw way more animals and learned about plants and animals that added so much to the visit. It was hot and humid even first thing in the morning and the park was crowded with people. We both enjoyed a quick swim at Manuel Antonio beach, though I was more bothered by all the people than Angie. Here are some pictures from the visit. The closeups are taken through the guides spotting scope, a real game-changer for seeing things up close.
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This spider monkey put on a great show.
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On Saturday morning May 4, we packed up, left our Airbnb and headed to La Fortuna
We then stopped at Don Juan coffee /chocolate/sugar cane tour in Monteverde. We both enjoyed it and learned a little more about how chocolate, sugar cane, and coffee are grown and processed. Then off we went to La Fortuna the 2 hour and 40 minute drive started out on rough roads which alternated between dirt and broken potholed asphalt. After about 45 min or so the road became smoother, but we had about a 45 minute delay when we had to reroute because of an accident
