Last weekend Matt and I took a vacation from our vacation and went to Manuel Antonio National Park. This is Costa Rica's smallest park, at only 3 sq mi, but it is also the second most visited. So, while we saw lots of the animals and biodiversity that the park is famous for, we also got to observe many interesting two-legged animals with cameras!
Manuel Antonio is on the Pacific coast not so far from us. I made the mistake of googling how to get between San Isidro (the big town down the valley) and Quepos (near the park), and learned that it would only take an hour and twenty minutes by car. Sadly, as budget minded backpackers, we did not travel by car. Instead, we started our vacation at 4:15 am when we left our house to walk the 45 min to San Gerardo, where we caught the 5:15 bus to San Isidro. As I think I've mentioned before, this is only 16 km, but takes 1.5 hours via bus (and still 45 min in a car, the road is terrible). In San Isidro we ran across town to catch the 7 am bus to Quepos, which took another 3.5 hours. Exhausted from a full day of travel, we still managed to arrive in Quepos at 10:30, which allowed us to go to a pretty little park on the edge of town (and the ocean), where we saw a baby sloth right away (adorable!).
After this brief stop, we hopped on another bus for about 20 min to get to the hostel where we were staying, and after checking in walked to the beach (we were expecting a 20 min walk, but it ended up taking about 40...). The beach was wonderful! Beautiful, in a protected cove, we got in the water expecting to be back on land soon, but couldn't drag ourselves out. The water was warm (in fact, nearly as warm as the hotsprings near Cloudbridge, which are more like warm springs) and clear.
Manuel Antonio is on the Pacific coast not so far from us. I made the mistake of googling how to get between San Isidro (the big town down the valley) and Quepos (near the park), and learned that it would only take an hour and twenty minutes by car. Sadly, as budget minded backpackers, we did not travel by car. Instead, we started our vacation at 4:15 am when we left our house to walk the 45 min to San Gerardo, where we caught the 5:15 bus to San Isidro. As I think I've mentioned before, this is only 16 km, but takes 1.5 hours via bus (and still 45 min in a car, the road is terrible). In San Isidro we ran across town to catch the 7 am bus to Quepos, which took another 3.5 hours. Exhausted from a full day of travel, we still managed to arrive in Quepos at 10:30, which allowed us to go to a pretty little park on the edge of town (and the ocean), where we saw a baby sloth right away (adorable!).
Our second day we woke up early to get to the National Park when it opened. This turned out to be well worth it, because we had a relatively quiet couple hours walking the trails before the busloads of tourists arrived. While in the park we saw lots of capuchin monkeys and sloths, as well as a double toothed kite (a bird of prey that follows the monkeys, eating lizards and such that they scare up) and a basilisk.
In the afternoon we headed to the beach, and spent the afternoon relaxing while scaring away racoons and capuchins that thought our bags looked interesting. We also saw a caiman, and I saw howler monkeys and a large black snake far up in a tree. Overall the park was definitely worth it, even if it was a bit overrun. In the evening Matt and I watched a great sunset from a bar overlooking the ocean. It was a lovely weekend, and as the guidebook says, Manuel Antonio is the Costa Rica that you dream about.
My camera was naturally dead as soon as we arrived at the beach, so these pictures are from our friend Kyle.
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