This weekend we visited el Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio. The fuzzy animals in the terrible video above (apologies for the cinematography) are called pizotes, and I actually didn't see them at the park--this is at the restaurant of the hotel we stayed at. As you can see, they love people food--a little girl fed them until they came all the way into the restaurant.
On Saturday night, we went on a night hike and saw tarantulas, a coral snake, poisonous centipedes, a scorpion, and a huge hill of ants. Very intense!
I think the highlight of the trip for me, though, was a stop at the touristy strip of beach outside the park, where dozens of vendors were peddling postcards, sundresses, jewelry, and other souvenir trinkets. Most vendors shouted at me in English: "Hello, my pretty! Look, my friend! Good price! Very nice!" I mostly just smiled and walked past, but one booth caught my eye. As I knelt down to look at the jewelry, the woman behind the table said, "Hola. Usted habla espanol?" When I said yes, she started to tell me quietly about the jewelry in Spanish. She asked me where I was from and how long I had been in Costa Rica, and she told me she was from Uruguay and had been here 8 months. I talked to her for about 15 minutes, and it was one of the most satisfying conversations I've had in Spanish. Mostly, I appreciated her respect for me as a human being (rather than a potential buyer/naive tourist) and the opportunity she gave me to prove and improve my skills.