Paradise

Before I left for Costa Rica, I heard there was one place in the country a person just had to go - Manuel Antonio. I've been there twice before, and both times I left wondering what was so great about it.

Well, the second time I left, I was wondering if the hostel owners knew it was my visiting friends Dave and Linsley and I who used the hostel's entire supply of water flushing out the bungalow's sewage pipes. But that's for a different post.

For the past two weeks, I've been in Manuel Antonio taking a course to get my Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate. While I'm still not very impressed with the town itelf, I did last weekend discover the national park.

Two friends of mine and I hired a guide to take us through the park and point out all the little critters and stuff. We'd just be walking along and the guide would squint into the forest and say, "Ah, here's something." When I tried to follow his gaze, all I could see was a bunch of trees.

Then he'd point his little telescope into the jungle and in the viewer would be a tiny little bat or a rainbow catapillar or the world's smallest humming bird or a crocodile eye peering up out of the water. My favorites were the sloths.

All of the pictures below were taken through the lense of the telescope. Are they called telescopes, or are telescopes only for looking at stars? I'm not sure.