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sloth and if you look closely you can see its head!We allowed ourselves a bit of a sleep in this morning given our frantic week of bussing all around the country. We wandered 3 doors up from our hotel to a hostel that did $4 'big breakfasts' – fruit platter, scrambled eggs, toast, coffee and of course, Central America's favourite dish, rice and beans.
The sun was already beating down on us and it felt like 100% humidity, as even sitting down and eating would raise a sweat. We wandered up to the entrance of Manuel Antonio National Park, paid our $10 entrance fee for foreigners (if I was Costa Rican, the entrance price was about 50c), shrugged off the would-be guides who were trying to obtain our business and strolled into the park, confident of seeing the elusive sloth. The Manuel Antonio National Park is a small national park, containing tropical rain forest and sandy beaches and apparently contains over a hundred different types of mammals and birds...our challenge was to try and find as many as we could!
We didn't have to walk far until we could start ticking off the list. We came across a group of people pointing and taking photos, the natural way of
finding animals in the rain forest. Up in the tree huddled up in a ball was a sloth! We pulled out our camera and zoomed in as much as possible to get a good shot. Unlike monkeys or hummingbirds, sloths don't move about much (or at all) so it was just a matter of holding the camera as steady as possible. We'd later discover that night when looking at our photos that we managed to capture the sloths face too! We kept wandering through the park and came across a playful group of white-faced monkeys. One little guy jumped between two branches and held a pose right infront of me to capture a great shot.
We turned off the main path and headed towards a lookout. The walk which started out flat quickly turned uphill and before we knew it we were all drenched in sweat. On the walk up, we saw countless little lizards and then I saw a flash of orange. I turned just in time to see this bright orange crab creeping back into his hole. I thought I'd missed my opportunity to capture this rare creature however it only took another 15m to discover more,
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manuel antonio national park and more, and more of these little critters. Bearing in mind that we were hiking up to a lookout, so we're a good way away from the beach, but that hasn't stopped these crabs from calling the hill top home.
We finally got to the lookout after half an hour of climbing and the view was spectacular. We could see out across the peninsula at the sky blue water and golden sandy beaches off in the distance. As we were admiring the view, we heard a rustling in the trees behind us. We turned to investigate when the rustling turned into frantic scratching as the noise went from the tree top to the forrest floor. We were puzzled as to what happened when this iguana came staggering out, having just shat itself, and stopped in the middle of the path and just looked at us appearing to say 'and what are you looking at'. It was quite funny and the big lizard seemed ok after his fall from grace. After recovering, he lumbered off the path, onto a log and proceeded to nibble on some leaves. We said our goodbyes to the iguana and trundled back down the path
in search of the nearest beach.
We found our beach, Playa Espadilla Sur, which was a quiet little cove with some gentle waves crashing in and a few people doted along the enjoying the sunshine. We found a fallen tree just as we entered the beach and thought it was a good platform for handstands (Rach only this time as I didn't feel confident balancing on such a small surface) and jump shots; one of which made our photo of the day. We put our stuff down and made a beeline for the water. Unfortunately the sandy beach turned into a rocky ocean and tip-toed and tumbled into the water. We could only last a short period of time in the water as the rocks were quite sharp and slimy underfoot but the water was refreshing all the same after our little hike. We dried off in the sunshine, watching tiny hermet crabs running up and down the beach. We turned around when we heard a rustling noise to find a little white-faced monkey casually sifting through some poor buggers backpack on the beach!! I jumped up and shooed the monkey away, just like getting rid of a seagull
away from fish n chips. The owner of the bag hurridly made his way out of the water just to make sure the monkey hadn't stolen anything of value!
We could hear thunder rolling in from the distance and our sunshine soon turned into overcast (not that the temperature changed any) and we decided that it was time for lunch. We strolled back out of the national park, but not before getting up close and personal with a few monkeys on the way out of the beach (making sure our bags were well and truly locked away). We went back to the same place for lunch as yesterday and ordered exactly the same thing! After lunch we met up with Charlenne and Corinna, a couple of the Aussie girls from our last tour group who we said goodbye to in San Jose. We chatted about each others travel plans and given they are from Brisbane, arranged to see them when we all finish up our travelling.
We wandered back to the hotel for a rest around 4pm. Rach fell asleep and I powered through the 2
nd book of the Clifton Chronicals (I'm now over a book ahead of
Rach!). For dinner, we went to El Avion Restaurant with the rest of our tour group. This restaurant is a little bizaare as it houses a giant bloody C-130 type aeroplane in the middle of the eating area. I don't really know the whole story behind it however apparently this aircraft was used by the USA to secretly arm the guerras fighting in the Nicarguan revolution. It was either intercepted or captured somehow at great embarrisment to the Reagan administration at the height of the cold war. It was left abandoned at San Jose before being purchased, shipped to Manuel Antonio and stuck up on the cliff face for a new restaurant to be built around it! Bizaare...
That draws as end to our busy day in Manuel Antonio. We could really use another couple of days relaxing by the beach but alas, another travel day tomorrow back to the wonderful scenes of San Jose.
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Uncle Pete
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Bloody fantastic, love following your travels. Keep it up.