Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
We're up early again (who said travel is relaxing) and have our DIY breakfast of yoghurt, granola and banana, ready to explore the Manuel Antonio National Park. It's a short drive to where we meet our guide, Diego, and the other people on our tour, which is just one other couple from South Carolina. They're both lovely and the girl's name is Courtney as well, so that probably has something to do with it.
We follow our guide down the road to the car park and we're barely out of the car before Diego is beckoning us over to show us a sloth in the tree! A good sign we think, as we haven't set foot in the actual park yet!
After goo goo gah gahing for a bit over the sloth (this one is a 3 toed sloth, the last one we saw in Arenal was a 2 toe. The 3 toe looks more like the better known smiley face one you see plastered everywhere), we head into the park. Interesting to see how different their features are. The 2-toed looks a bit like a pig with its snout. Aparently they are not related, so the evolved separetly towards a similar end product.
Not far in our guide is notified by another guide there has been a snake siting. We take a slight detour to check it out. It's another fer-de-lance like we saw in Arenal. It's off the path (just), curled up and snoozing. It's not big but it will bite and melt the skin off your arm. It strikes about 400 people a year with a 4% death rate. So we let that be and carry on. Like all our guides to date, Diego is extremely passionate and knowledgeable about nature and wildlife things. He even went and studied natural resources management to get a job in that field, but it seems he just loves being out in nature.
We trundle on slowly and get to see some tiny bats, birds, a lizard they hardly ever get to see because it's nocturnal (forget about the sloth, this is the prize animal Diego informs us), forest crabs and another coati feasting on a forest crab. Sounds crunchy. We see another sloth and it's just as exciting as the first two times. This one is scratching and moving about which we haven't seen before. Diego tells us that when the sloth is high up in the tree, a sort of moss grows on their back when butterflies and other insects hang out. The sloth has manners and instead of pooping from high up in the tree on everyone, he comes to ground to do it. The insects come with him and lay their eggs in his poo, which he then covers up and they hop back on for the ride back up the tree. Incredible.
We wander on down to the famous Manuel Antonio beach, (which is part of the park). This is where Diego leaves us and we're free to do a short hike with views of the Pacific before heading out. We're getting along well with the South Carolinians so we carry on together for the hike. We see more lizards, goannas and iguanas, just cruising around on the edge of the beach in the palms. We're lamenting to our new friends how despite everyone saying they're everywhere, we've hardly seen any monkeys and not up close. And what do you know, mid complaint a troup of about 20 capuchin monkeys show up! They're lolling about the stairs, scratching around for food, not too bothered about us. Amazing. We see the views and sweat our way to the end of the hike (have we mentioned it's hot and humid as hell yet?!) and you won't believe but we spot our 3rd sloth of the trip! Well someone else spotted it but we're frothing nonetheless.
We make our way back to the car with a quick stop for a fresh coconut water each. It truly is a great hydrator. It's time for lunch so we head into Quespo. The lady from the villa we're staying at recommended a seafood place so that's where we go. This is the spot for seafood, we think, as the restaurant overlooks the fishing boats. We order a surprise fruit smoothie, Ceviche for entree, a prawn pasta and shrimp, chicken and bacon rice. It's all outstanding.
The heat has really zapped us, so it's back to the villa for a quick nap and beer on the balcony to recharge. We're picked up about 5:30 for evening kayak tour. It's just us and our guide, Mega tonight. He warns us that the tour might not go ahead if it's too rainy, but we'll see when we get there. It's about a 20 minute drive and Mega fills us in on the history of the area.
We get to the launch pad and it's raining heavier now. Mega suggests we reschedule to tomorrow, as it won't be fun in the rain and also the animals hide from it. We do a quick mental calculation and decide we can fit it in tomorrow before we head for our next destination, if we do it early enough. We part ways with Mega and spend the evening learning a bit more about the United Fruit Company, before heading to bed.
