don't want to be an american idiot

this weekend, pat and i took the bus from san jose to quepos, where we spent the night in a dumpy hotel and then went to manuel antonio which is a national park on the pacific coast, about 15 minutes away from quepos. the bus ride from san jose was not as long as we had expected (about 3 hours) and was pretty pleasant for me, because i got the last seat on the bus. costa rica strangely has its act together when it comes to buses, and most people make reservations for the bus several days in advance. pat and i did not figure this out, so pat spent most of the ride to manuel antonio on the floor in the back of the bus. when a seat finally opened up, we got to sit next to each other. this turned out to be not so good. we were listening to our ipods, and i looked out the window, where we were passing a palm tree forest. i had no idea these existed, and practically screamed at pat, "IS THAT A PALM TREE FOREST?!?!" he gave me a look of death, and replied, "you're shouting. actually shouting." the rest of the bus was dead silent. great. i spent the rest of the bus ride wanting to melt into my seat.
the rest of the weekend passed without too much going wrong. the beach was gorgeous (although it took us awhile to find it) and we had an amazing dinner at a place called "la barba roja" which means "the red beard." pat was loving it. we also saw some live music, and enjoyed some very girly tropical drinks. we spent the night in a 14 bed dorm in a hostel, which was good because it was only $10 a night, but bad because people were coming and going all night, making sleep almost impossible. we napped on the beach the next day, long enough for pat to get a sunburn.
we didn't go into the actual national park (the $7 entrance fee was too much for the poverty plan) but plan on returning, because pat really wants to see a sloth. he kept getting excited about lumps in trees when we were walking to the beach, which we thought were sloths but were actually weird tree growths. you can also go on tours of the mangroves, where there are crocodiles and monkeys and god knows what, so when we sack up and pay to get into the park, i'll let you all know how it goes.