Today we had only one point on the agenda - a visit to the beaches at Manuel Antonio park.
That meant first to drive through the town of Quepos...
Today we had only one point on the agenda -
a visit to the beaches at Manuel Antonio park.
That meant first to drive through the town of Quepos...
...and then find a parking in a tight oceanside community of Manuel Antonio.
Manuel Antonio is about 6 km from Quepos and there is a
regular bus service between the towns.
It is also a prime tourist destination, so the road is lined with hotels...
...local restaurants...
...and numerous souvenir shops.
Manuel Antonio has its own public beach...
...but it is better to take a short side road to the park and pay $10 for
access to some of Costa Rica most desired beaches.
Most of the park is the remnant of a pristine jungle...
...so if you pay attention, you can spot many interesting species (toucan).
And don't worry if your spotting abilities are a bit shaky -
almost every animal would have a group of tourists pointing
their cameras at it.
Without these groups of tourists -
usually lead by a local nature guide -
you would miss a lot of interesting photo ops.
This is a pair of sloths - a mom (on the left) and a baby sloth (on the right).
The great thing about sloths is that if you don't like the light conditions,
you can come back 3 hours later and they will still be there.
And this is the most popular of the park's 3 beaches (Playa Manuel Antonio).
When we got there (around 10am) it was nearly tourist free although during the day
it filled up.
The beach was quite wide due to low tide, but by the time we left
the ocean reached nearly to the tree line.
Before we would settle down, we decided to explore more of the park's nature trails.
One led to the second beach (Playa Puerto Escondido)
which at low tied appeared pretty rocky.
From there we climbed to a little overlook...
...occupied by a stray member of Iguana Tours bus.
The park's main animal attractions are its ubiquitous monkeys.
Some say that the park has more monkeys than tourists. I would believe it.
Some of them just relax on branches, wondering how long is it going to take
before they evolve into homo sapiens.
Before plunging into the warm waters of the Pacific ocean, I took this green tunnel...
...and emerged on park's third beach (Playa Espadilla Sur). Here it is from
the other side
I walked across it to the pair of rocks...
...which were the home to numerous water birds.
In the vista between the rocks I even spotted a paraglider.
But I don't think he or she counted as a water fowl.
Despite the ban on feeding animals, there are some raccoons in the park who love
to fraternize with tourists and beg for scraps of their food.
Most beaches were calm and quite suitable for swimming...
...but if you were so inclined, you could find some dramatic action too.
By 4pm the rising tide erased most of the beach, so we were not too
disappointed that the park was closing.
On our way back we made a short stop at Quepos and then headed
to our hotel in Damas for dinner.
There we learned that due to low guest count the dinner was canceled.
We did not feel like driving back to Quepos, so we went native and just took a walk
to a convenience store in Damas.
This was a small village
from which we were separated by
a grove of olive palms.
The walk through the village of Damas was
perhaps the most authentic experience of our whole trip.
There was nothing touristy about it.
By the time we selected our dinner, the Sun went down, and soon we were
back in our hotel
watching "Los Simpson" and feasting on local fare.
