Manuel Antonio National Park

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We decided it was finally time to see the park. We hired a guide so we'd actually have a chance to see some animals. Our guides name was Mauricio, and he knew his stuff. He also had a really nice telescope that gave us great views of the animals and some good pics too. That said, it was pretty freakin expensive for a 3 hr tour. Here are some photos from the walk.

Hasta luego...

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Photos

Park Entrance
This was the start of the guided walk. Mauricio was explaining some of the areas and where he hoped to find animals.

Greater White Lined Bat
Mauricio said these bats will sometimes attach spider's silk to their noses to help catch insects.

Yaht
Not exactly and endangered species, but it was still impressive. We guessed it was around $2 mil?

Sloth and Baby
In Spanish the name for sloth is "perezoso", which also means "lazy". Fitting since they sleep 17-21 hrs/day - possibly the laziest in the world, although I thought the Koala was pretty close to that too. According to Mauricio: Sloths use only about 4 trees on a normal basis. Gestation is 6 months. the mothers will care for the baby for another six months, after which they will leave the baby in their favorite trees and go find new trees for themselves. They give birth to the baby in the tree, but we later heard from one of the teachers at El Paraiso that sloths can't crap in the tree. They have to come down once a week to do that.

Blackheaded Lizard
When they're young they aren't very black, but as they get older they gradually turn black with their head turning black last. Mauricio found this guy when he heard it slap its tail against the branch.

The Jesus Lizard
Named so because it can move fast enough to run across the water's surface. A young lizard's feet will touch the water 50x/second.

Golden Web Spider
One of these bit our guide, not on that walk, but he had a scar from a week or two ago on his shoulder.