Manuel Antonio

From Alajuela we headed onwards to the pacific coast and the beautiful Manuel Antonio National Park. To get there we needed to get a half hour morning bus into the centre of San Jose full with morning commuters, then a cab across the city centre followed by a third bus all the way to the town of Manuel Antonio, just outside of the National Park. 

The first day we unpacked and walked down to the beach for a well needed swim. I can’t describe how good it felt to be back in the Pacific Ocean on a nice, warm beach! We chilled out under some trees for a while before we were alerted by a local coconut vendor to some action going on in the trees above us. There was a big sloth climbing around in a mango tree right next to us and we hadn’t even noticed! He was super relaxed, and wasn’t dazed in the slightest by all the excited shrieks made both by us and lots of other young tourist kids. We unfortunately didn’t get any pictures of this little dude as we hadn’t brought anything down to the beach with us! However, luckily for us this was not our only sloth encounter in Manuel. 

Also that afternoon I found a guy to repair some of the numerous larger dings my surfboard had acquired on the way from Ecuador –  Glad to know that paying $80 US to put my board on the plane resulted in plenty of TLC – thanks for nothing Copa Airlines…

That night we had some cheeky bevies with some new friends from the hostel – Aimee, James and Andy (Hey guys!) – before heading out to a local club called “Zion”. The night was good fun despite Zion being filled with plenty of of creepy local guys trying to sell drugs and staring predatorily at every single tourist girl on the dance-floor somewhat akin to a pride of lions surrounding a family of gazelle at the watering hole. 

The next day we chilled out at the beach and took a back path below the hostel down to another beach. This was a really awesome walk which looped through some beautifully green (although very muddy) Costa Rican farmland.

Next morning we got up bright and early and headed down to the National Park. It cost $15 US pp to enter the park, and we’re glad we got there early as the park became busy quite quickly. We didn’t get a guide here to save a bit of cash, and didn’t really need to as we saw plenty of wildlife, including white headed capuchin monkeys, squirrel monkeys, some large iguanas, and a family of small wombat-like mammals which we still don’t know the name of! (If you do can you please tell us). Oh and on the way out we saw another big sloth hanging around in a tree making a show for us! 

Despite the afternoons having predictable heavy thunderstorms – yes we realise we went to tropical Costa Rica in the wet season –   we really liked Manuel Antonio. If you’re after some fun in the sun right next to a sizeable national park, which isn’t too far from the capital San Jose then this is the place for you.

Next stop – Puerto Jimenez and the Corcovado National Park.