In this episode, we make a day of the Manuel Antonio National Park. This park is Costa Rica’s smallest but second most visited in the country. We get hit up at 6:30am on the street for a parking fee, of which the hotel receptionist told us that we didn’t have to pay. Then wandered a mile to the entrance of the park to begin our day. The park entrance was filled with guides all vying for your money and attention. We opted to forgo the guides and entered the park.
We were checked for food and beverages, and had to toss our pringles as they make too much noise for the monkey mafia and are a prime target for a shakedown. Within a hundred feet, we started off with a 4-5 foot snake and the animal adventure didn’t stop after that. From monkeys, bats, crabs, woodpeckers, iguanas, to eventually seeing a sloth and the white face monkey mafia later in the day.
The park was pretty busy even at 8am, which was something we weren’t used to coming from the nicoya peninsula. We ended up spending five hours in the park, with the highlight being the monkeys near the beach and the sloth on our way out of the park. The beaches were beautiful, but with so much walking we weren’t really in the mood to get sandy. The day ended back at the pool with a torrential rain coming in before dinner.
Dinner was at this restaurant with a huge airplane in the lobby, it was cool ambiance, but the service and food was horrible. We went home to prepare for our next days departure south to Dominical and Uvita, but some things ended up changing our minds. Join us next time to see what happens!!