Manuel Antonio National Park

Since we didn't' have much luck finding animals on the hiking trail yesterday we got up really early to check out the national park.  We arrived at the park entrance shortly after 8.  After we paid our entrance fee of $10USD we were approached by guides carrying large telescopes.  They offered guided tours and started with $20 per person.  As we got closer to the park gate, it had dropped down to $50 for all 6 of us.  We stilled declined.

There was a main trail that led to the beach. It was still very quiet with few tourists. We tried to walk and look up for animals at the same time. Harder than you think. Now we understood why the guides carried telescopes. It was hard to see anything through the thick bush and tall trees.  People told us to go to park early since the animals were most active in the morning.  That was a lie, we saw no animals.

The beach was nice, much like the private beach we had at Tulemar.  We found a patch of shad to hang and went for a dip in the ocean.   We joked it was not quite show time yet for the animals and that's why we haven't seen any.   Around 9:30 out of the trees 4 or 5 white faced monkeys ran onto the beach.  They were immediately surrounded by tourists snapping their pictures. These fast little buggers were probably doing a quick ground sweep for any food left behind.  Before you knew, they were back onto the high tree branches beyond anyone's reach. 

The potential of food also attracted a couple of raccoons.  They were small like Poncho, but definitely more handsy than him.  They tried to steal our suntan lotion!

 

More and more people were making their way to the beach now. We decided to retreat and took the main trail back to the main gate. The trail was now packed with tourists.  Tourists who paid for guides and these guides were pointing out animals hiding in the bushes. All we had to do was look in the same direction.  There were a mother sloth and her baby, but they were so far up in the tree so all we could see was a shadow or two.  We were out of the park by 10:30AM.  Before we hopped into our taxi to head back, I had to grab a fresh coconut for the road.  I had a lot cerviche, but not enough coconut on this trip.  It was terribly overpriced at $2USD, but it was getting hot and that coconut really hit the spot!

Instead of going back to the hotel we got the taxi to drop us off at El Avion, a restaurant and bar built around an old war plane.  There was a full bar inside the fuselage.  At the back of the restaurant was a dining room that overlooked the ocean.  Our plan was to have lunch here, but it didn't open until noon. 

We got up too early to wait another hour for lunch, so we moved onto Cafe Milagro.  I ordered the cerviche again. So good!  I must find a good cerviche place in Vancouver or I might suffer some serious withdrawal.

After lunch, we went back to Tulemar and took a 3 hour nap in our bungalow.   Dinner time we went with our conceirge's recommendation and went to Barba Roja (Red Beard) for BBQ ribs night.  The rib ($21USD) dinner complete with 3 sides were big enough to feed a small family so we shared the ribs and an order of party steak nachos platter between the four of us.  The nachos were the best I have had I think.  The thick and gooey cheese really made a huge difference.  Nachos in Canada were always short on the cheese.  I didn't think Costa Rica would be a food vacation, but it was definitely turning into one.

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Location:Manual Antonio