Blogs from Manuel Antonio, Puntarenas, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 2

Photos of Manuel Antonio National Park...... read more

The sun was shining bright and hot today for our morning in Manuel Antonio National Park where we saw a three and two toed sloth, howler monkeys, lizards, raccoons, and the highlight which was a pack of squirrel monkeys that came all the way down to the path and were close enough to touch. The beaches were absolutely stunning and the wildlife loud. One of the raccoons performed a successful daylight robbery of someone's lunch from their bag on the beach then proceeded to eat it in full view and without a care. Before heading back to miserable San Jose on the bus we had dinner on the beach restaurant again during high tide. On the beach live a pack of white headed capuchin monkeys which are also fearless and come close to people. One had ... read more

Distance driven today: none – hanging out in Manuel Antonio Cumulative distance driven: 7,474 miles / 12,028 km Today’s trip: Hiking around Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica We spent all day in beautiful Manuel Antonio on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The humidity level here is well over 80% most of the day, apart from the time when the tropical rain starts pouring, upon which the humidity level further increases! Zoe and I took a long guided tour in the Manuel Antonio tropical rainforest national park. We learned that, despite its tiny size of 200 hectares / 8 square miles, the national park boasts over 100 mammal species and close to 200 bird species, making it one of the most biodiverse areas anywhere. Our guide, who carried a tripod and powerful binocular lens with him, did ... read more

We had an amazing weekend getaway at Manuel Antonio National Park. We left right after school in an absolute downpour to head to the "beach" for the weekend. We took the Interbus (which is like a private shuttle bus) from Santa Ana to Manuel Antonio. It is on the west coast of Costa Rica on the Pacific Ocean side. It took about 3 hours with a lot of traffic and a few stops along the way. We arrived after dark to our hotel "Costa Verde". The hotels motto is "Still more monkeys than people" so we were hoping for lots of sightings. Our room was great, really big with an amazing balcony but it was dark so we didn't really know where we were. The kids were super hungry and we weren't really sure where to ... read more

Nick: What with the salt flats tour, trip to the Amazon and visit to Machu Picchu (not to mention the bout of illness between the two), the last two or three weeks of travelling had definitely been the most intense so far and it started to catch up with us. As such, we were looking forward to our time in Costa Rica and having a few days to calm down and recuperate before the next leg. We'd wanted to visit Costa Rica for some time - it had only just been pipped to the post for our honeymoon destination by New Zealand - and when we'd drawn up our travelling plans, we couldn't resist bolting it on to the end of our South America itinerary, since we were in that neck of the woods (sort of!). ... read more