Today I decided to visit
Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio. It is the second smallest National Park in Costa Rica, 1625 hectares made up of
rainforest and tropical beaches, and widely visited by tourists. This park opens from 7am to 4pm and only allows 800 people in each day. I had heard that they usually reach their quota early in the morning, so I decided to get up at six in the morning and catch the bus, about 7 km away, to be there when it opened.
When I arrived I ran into my friends from Quebec who were also there with a Swiss couple from our hostel, so we all decided to travel together. There are about five different trails within the park and easily followed without a guide. We started out our trek along a very wide path and for the first 20 minutes or so, I was not overly impressed. The
rainforest is not as green as I had expected, mostly because it is very dry right now and I had hoped to see some wildlife at this point. Once we got off the main track however, wildlife we did see.
Throughout our five hour hike, we saw everything from the most angelic
morpho butterflies, electric blue in
colour and simply floating through the air, a lazy brown
throated 3-toed sloth and a
Hoftman 2-toed sloth very high up in the trees, giant termite mounds in the trees and crabs with very bright orange legs crawling all over the forest floor. We also saw many Central American agouti, a large rodent that looks like a cross between a rabbit and a squirrel, iguanas on the beach, thousands of bees high on the branches
of some of the trees, various birds and lots of
geckoes. But the absolute highlight of my visit to Manuel Antonio were the monkeys.
At first we could hear howler monkeys in the distance. They are very loud and have a distinct sound. Then on our decent down one of the trails we noticed a lot of people standing around. When we came closer we could see about seven or eight monkeys swinging from the branches high up in the trees. They were very tiny and light brown in colour. It turns out they were spider monkeys, which can be recognized by their long, thin legs. What is unique about this monkey is that it rarely comes to the ground. In fact it is becoming endangered because of logging and development, as it needs large
secti
ons of unbroken forest to live in. They were really
amazing and reminded me of little kids playing together.
Not more than 20 feet further down the path we came across the white faced
capuchin. Now these monkeys were very close to us to start and there were about 20 of them all together. They were also playing around and were not that afraid of people. In fact they came about a foot away from me when one jumped down out of a
tree. A bit too close for my comfort, so I quickly moved out of the way. We spent a good 20 minutes just looking at this incredible sight and took as many pictures as we could before heading out. When we started to leave some of the monkeys actually appeared to be fighting and made the loudest
noises. What an experience!!!!!
The views of the many beaches within the park are also incredible. They really can take your breath away, with their pure white sand, blue waters and volcanic rock. The best part was actually getting to go down to the beach and spend a bit of time there. There is quite an
undertow at all the beaches in this area, lot
s of volcanic rock and
rainforest coming down to meet the ocean. After spending most of the morning walking through the forest and of course sweating...I am sure I lost 15 pounds of fluid today...we decided to have a picnic lunch along the beach. I decided to spend the next two hours relaxing on the beach, taking in the beautiful sights and cooling off in the water. Now this is what a vacation is all about!!!
At about three
o'clock the tide had risen so far that I decided to pack up my things and head out of the park. Along the way you could see the surf crashing into the rocks not far off the beach, and I simply took in the beauty of this
pristine area. Since the tide had risen so much since arriving, I actually had to take a boat to get back to the town. Now this was possibly the shortest boat ride I have ever had....60 s
econds to be exact!!! The beach outside the park is just as nice, but much more crowded and full of tourists. The town of Manuel Antonio is very small and caters completely to tourists. I would have looked around more had I not been so exhausted, but I just headed back to my hostel and went for another swim at the pool.
Quepos is not that safe at night. Our hostel is fully gated, with a guard outside all night and you are not allowed to have any
visitors enter. When returning home in the night, you are even told not to walk home in groups. So once it was dark, I decided to stay around the hostel,
wa
tch a little TV in the common room and pack up my things. I bought a ticket to go to La
Fortuna to see the
Arenal volcano and my bus was to leave at 6am, so another early morning for me. Oh the backpacking life!!!
I really enjoyed my visit to Manuel Antonio and now wish I had stayed one extra night, but all good things must come to an end. I am sure there is much more for me to see over the next three weeks and look forward to what is ahead.
Until then.....
When I arrived I ran into my friends from Quebec who were also there with a Swiss couple from our hostel, so we all decided to travel together. There are about five different trails within the park and easily followed without a guide. We started out our trek along a very wide path and for the first 20 minutes or so, I was not overly impressed. The rainforest is not as green as I had expected, mostly because it is very dry right now and I had hoped to see some wildlife at this point. Once we got off the main track however, wildlife we did see.
Throughout our five hour hike, we saw everything from the most angelic morpho butterflies, electric blue in 
colour and simply floating through the air, a lazy brown throated 3-toed sloth and a Hoftman 2-toed sloth very high up in the trees, giant termite mounds in the trees and crabs with very bright orange legs crawling all over the forest floor. We also saw many Central American agouti, a large rodent that looks like a cross between a rabbit and a squirrel, iguanas on the beach, thousands of bees high on the branches 
of some of the trees, various birds and lots of geckoes. But the absolute highlight of my visit to Manuel Antonio were the monkeys.
At first we could hear howler monkeys in the distance. They are very loud and have a distinct sound. Then on our decent down one of the trails we noticed a lot of people standing around. When we came closer we could see about seven or eight monkeys swinging from the branches high up in the trees. They were very tiny and light brown in colour. It turns out they were spider monkeys, which can be recognized by their long, thin legs. What is unique about this monkey is that it rarely comes to the ground. In fact it is becoming endangered because of logging and development, as it needs large secti
ons of unbroken forest to live in. They were really amazing and reminded me of little kids playing together.
Not more than 20 feet further down the path we came across the white faced capuchin. Now these monkeys were very close to us to start and there were about 20 of them all together. They were also playing around and were not that afraid of people. In fact they came about a foot away from me when one jumped down out of a 
tree. A bit too close for my comfort, so I quickly moved out of the way. We spent a good 20 minutes just looking at this incredible sight and took as many pictures as we could before heading out. When we started to leave some of the monkeys actually appeared to be fighting and made the loudest noises. What an experience!!!!!
The views of the many beaches within the park are also incredible. They really can take your breath away, with their pure white sand, blue waters and volcanic rock. The best part was actually getting to go down to the beach and spend a bit of time there. There is quite an undertow at all the beaches in this area, lot
s of volcanic rock and rainforest coming down to meet the ocean. After spending most of the morning walking through the forest and of course sweating...I am sure I lost 15 pounds of fluid today...we decided to have a picnic lunch along the beach. I decided to spend the next two hours relaxing on the beach, taking in the beautiful sights and cooling off in the water. Now this is what a vacation is all about!!!
At about three o'clock the tide had risen so far that I decided to pack up my things and head out of the park. Along the way you could see the surf crashing into the rocks not far off the beach, and I simply took in the beauty of this pristine area. Since the tide had risen so much since arriving, I actually had to take a boat to get back to the town. Now this was possibly the shortest boat ride I have ever had....60 s
econds to be exact!!! The beach outside the park is just as nice, but much more crowded and full of tourists. The town of Manuel Antonio is very small and caters completely to tourists. I would have looked around more had I not been so exhausted, but I just headed back to my hostel and went for another swim at the pool.
Quepos is not that safe at night. Our hostel is fully gated, with a guard outside all night and you are not allowed to have any visitors enter. When returning home in the night, you are even told not to walk home in groups. So once it was dark, I decided to stay around the hostel, wa
tch a little TV in the common room and pack up my things. I bought a ticket to go to La Fortuna to see the Arenal volcano and my bus was to leave at 6am, so another early morning for me. Oh the backpacking life!!!
I really enjoyed my visit to Manuel Antonio and now wish I had stayed one extra night, but all good things must come to an end. I am sure there is much more for me to see over the next three weeks and look forward to what is ahead.
Until then.....
Hi Lisa,
ReplyDeleteCosta Rica looks so beautiful. I'm not so sure about the monkeys though! Be careful you don't get some crazy monkey bite! It sounds like you're having a real adventure and meeting some interesting people. That's the best part of travelling! Anyway, I look forward to hearing more of your stories when you get home. -Rola