Manuel Antonio National Park

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Ah, now I can leave happy. I wanted to see a monkey before I came home and I would have stayed until I saw one. A few weekends ago Steve and I headed to the Pacific coast to a small town called Quepos. Quepos is well known for its ability to provide incredible sport fishing opportunities but is also becoming a more populated area due to its proximity to Manuel Antonio. This area should be on your top 10 places to visit in Costa Rica. The beaches are fantastic and the Manuel Antonio National Park is phenomenal.

Once we got to Quepos we looked at our map to see where our hostel was at and then began to hike. The area is actually quite hilly and it was pretty humid that day. We ended up making it to our hostel thoroughly soaked in sweat. We unloaded our stuff and caught the bus to the beach. The rest of Saturday was spent soaking up some sun and cooling off in the ocean. The day was pretty relaxing but definitely uneventful. On our way back to the hostel we stopped by the market to pick up some food for the night and the next day’s breakfast. After we ate our well-prepared dinner, we watched a movie and chatted with a guy who was visiting from Germany. When you are traveling, you should definitely choose to stay at hostels. They are much cheaper than a hotel and you have the good fortune of meeting great people who have incredibly interesting stories.

We woke up early Sunday morning in order to eat breakfast, checkout, and then catch the bus to Manuel Antonio so that we could have as much time as possible to hike through the park and see as many animals as we could. The night before, we had bought some yogurt and granola for breakfast and put the yogurt in the refrigerator to stay cold until the morning. Well it was definitely cold. I think in most parts of the world they would have called it frozen. We ate our breakfast of champions and then hit the road.

The Manuel Antonio National Park was incredible. I had just wanted to see at least one monkey. I think we saw hundreds. I have seen plenty of monkeys in zoos and of course on TV but seeing them here is something completely different. I don’t know what it is but it seems a bit more magical when you see them in their natural habitat. I felt like a little kid at Disney Land. We hiked around the park for about four hours and were able to see white-faced capuchins, squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, raccoons, iguanas, a boa constrictor, and agoutis.

I think I can finally leave Costa Rica happy now that I have seen all of these animals. If you ever travel to Costa Rica, be sure to check out Manuel Antonio National Park. I don’t think you will be disappointed.

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Photos

Squirrel Monkey
These little guys are hard to take a picture of.