I heard it was touristy, I knew it would be filled with overpriced restaurants and souvenir shops, but I came anyway. Needing to get out of the city, and more specifically to some warmer temperatures I left San Jose and headed for the coast.  I knew to expect higher prices and probably loads of tourists, but I accepted this and looked past it.  Manuel Antonio, both the park and beach, is listed in multiple guide books and “must see” destination lists so I figured there must be a reason, and I wanted to check it out.

For the last 5 years my heart has been stuck (and still partially remains) in Asia. I taught and lived in Korea,  studied yoga in Thailand, taught it in Cambodia and traveled extensively around the reason. Friends kept asking why I kept going back to Asia, “go somewhere new” they would urge.  Finally, last year I took some time to jump around Europe, although that trip was cut short by my return to Korea where I put in another year teaching.  The whole year of which was filled with distant thoughts of South American, a place I planned to explore soon.  I finished, crossed one more SE Asia destination off my list, and returned home, ready to plan my South American travels.  Only that didn’t actually happen, instead I started searching yoga retreats, which led to airline tickets and before long I had myself headed to Costa Rica on New Year’s Eve.  I opted for the one-way ticket, pretty normal in my book, thinking that I could always turn this into the beginning of a trip South.  What I dismissed though was my love-affair with the East, and just how strong it was.