Parque Manuel Antonio

November 25, 2008

Parque Manuel Antonio

Parque Manuel Antonio is one of the better known and more frequently visited national parks in Costa Rica--and with good reason; its wildlife is abundant and beaches are beautiful. The park is located on the central Pacific coast, in the province of Puntarenas and is about a four hour bus ride from San Jose. After classes last Friday (or at least the classes that I attended after running 20 miles), I headed out of the city with some friends to visit this national, natural treasure. Although the weather wasn't great (sort of overcast and muggy--but maybe that is typical), we still enjoyed hiking through the park and hanging out on the beach and in the water. The rain forest is literally only meters away from the beach and monkeys and sloths can be easily spotted dangling from tree branches. We also encountered some pretty cool looking iguanas and a pesky raccoon that kept trying to steal our sandwiches. Hermit crabs of varying sizes crawled around, and the rocks near the water were covered with large crabs. I enjoyed a colorful sunset on Saturday from my perch on a large rock out in the water; rocks have always been good thinking spots for me.

Probably the most enjoyable element of the weekend was not even the scenery or wildlife, but the people I met while in and en route to the park. For example, staying at our hostel was a couple from Israel (Abi and Keren) with whom we spent most of Sunday. It was really interesting to speak with them about cultural and religious traditions in their country, and we also discussed for quite a while our different faith perspectives. As fairly non-religious individuals, they see the Jewish beliefs and traditions (and religion in general, I think) as primarily a means for creating community and helping people to be more moral. It is also a way of preserving culture and keeping alive the stories of a people group. I agree with them in each of these aspects: religion is an important component of culture, yes, but I believe that it is also much more than this. What we believe determines how we make sense of who we are and the world in which we live, but we are more than just products of our culture, and we can't define ourselves solely by our ethnicity, race, language, religion, economic status, or level of education; we are also spiritual beings created by God to know and be known by Him. Although religion may be a construction of society--sometimes to its benefit and sometimes its detriment--God is not a construction of society, a crutch or mere means of explaining how the world came into existence. And those who have experienced the love of Jesus and now find their identity in Him, know this to be true! Anyway...these are some of the ideas that I tried to express to Adi and Keren while still asking them a lot of questions about their beliefs, cultural and religious traditions, etc. It was a very positive and interesting exchange, from my point of view at least.

Interestingly enough, I also met a young man from Germany this weekend, Florian, who held similar views about religion--basically that it is a cultural construction that one can choose to take or leave. So we had some good, although brief, conversation too. On the way home from Manuel Antonio, I practiced my Spanish with an amiable Texan (I think that Spanish speakers use the word "amable" much more than we use the word "amiable," but I sort of like it.) It would have been much easier to speak English--and we did so the second half of the bus ride--but we're both learning Spanish in San Jose and are at about the same language level, so we took the opportunity to practice.

All in all, it was a great weekend in the beautiful country of Costa Rica, and I have no tragedies, major or minor, to report. Here are some pictures with maybe more to come later.

iguanas