Our work is done and today we had our cultural day...in other words, we got to be vacationers today. We left the Missions & Ministry Center and headed towards the Pacific Ocean to Manuel Antonio National Park. We were blessed by William who guided us through the park where we saw monkeys, a sloth, bats, spiders, frogs, grasshoppers and sleeping plants (when you touch them they fold up like they went to sleep). We then headed to Marlin Restaurant for an awesome lunch. This was followed up with a couple of hours of shopping or relaxing on the beach. From there we headed up to El Avion which is a restaurant up on a hill with an awesome view of the Pacific Ocean where we had dinner. The weather was perfect, the servers were very personable and fun and the food was delicious. We also had a couple of unexpected visitors during dinner. Two white faced monkeys climbed up from the outside of the building and decided to hang out in the rafters while we were dining. After dinner we headed back to San Jose where we are staying the night before we end our trip tomorrow morning and begin our journeys home.
So, the end is here. The end of our journey together as a group where we laughed, worked, ate, slept and sweated together. A group of 19 strangers coming together to become a small family with memories made that will last a lifetime. God has been good to us this past week and has helped all of us grow in our faith and appreciation of what he has given us. We will be forever changed in positive ways. It will be fun to get together in two weeks as a group after all of this has settled in to see the effect this experience has had on all of us. Thanks for reading along with us and following our journey. If you have not gone on one of these trips, we strongly suggest you do. You will be so glad that you did.