The Falls at Manual Antonio National Park, Costa Rica
We hired, Fernando, the driver that picked us up at the airport to take us to Manual Antonio National Park. It's supposed to take 3 hours, he did it in 2.5 with a 20 minute stop for refreshments and shopping. Go Fernando. He's the gentleman waiting patiently for us in the bottom pic.
At one point Fernando did show us some crocodiles basking along a riverbank, but he was driving too fast for me to take a pic.
The drive to Manual Antonio National Park was pretty, mainly lots of lush green mountainous terrain with the occasional wisp of fog. It's the rainy season now and we were lucky today with just humid cloudy skies and no rain.
OMG - this National Park is amazing. We were given the advice to hire a guide rather than just wing it on our own. Best advice ever. We would have missed a lot without Juan. It was really hard to pick which photos made the blog.
Zebra grasshoppers
Three toed sloth
Neo-tropical land crab (which only travels to the ocean once in its life to reproduce)
Purple crown fairy hummingbird
Squirrel monkeys - mom and baby eating mangos. (We saw three different types of monkeys: whiteface, squirrel and howlers). I have pictures of all of them too!
We took several hours to walk through the park. Juan had an amazing spotting telescope on a tripod. There was no way I would have seen the things he was able to spot with the naked eye. He was also really good at hearing, identifying and imitating the different wildlife sounds in the jungle.
We also learned a lot about different flora. He had me poke some baby ferns and watch how they instantly closed up as a defense mechanism to keep from being grazed by animals. He also showed us some ficus type plants that created its own holes in their leaves to look like they had been chewed. Again a defense mechanism. Because they look partially chewed, animals think they are toxic and avoid them.
We eventually made it to a beach within the park and Juan gave us a choice to go back with him or stay in the park. We stayed. And swam. And played in the warm water.
We walked back into town, stopped for a snack, and then instead of taking a taxi or bus back to our hotel we decided to walk. We thought it was a lot closer than it was. And we had to walk over a HUGE hill. Like going up California St. in SF. The scariest part was there are no sidewalks. Made for an interesting walk home. Tomorrow we definitely take the tourist bus to the public beach!
The small hotel we are staying is amazing. Rather than having a magnificent view of the beach, we are on the jungle side and are butted up next to the National Park. This hotel, called The Falls at Manual Antonio has bungalows scattered throughout the tropical landscape. The bar, restaurant, sitting areas and pool are all open air and on different terraces. Our little bungalow comes with it's own hammock. When we arrived today we were greeted by Roberto, the iguana, on a walkabout.
This place is super chill. The pool is available 24 hours and we can hear all the jungle sounds around us. They have pretty good drinks too at happy hour.
Tonight we took a stroll around the town and decided upon a restaurant that was built AROUND a 1954 vintage bomber airplane. It has quite a history. It was part of the secret CIA deal that the US gave to the Sandistas during the Nicaraguan war. The secret deal was exposed (remember Oliver North, Papa Bush and the Iran-Contra scandal?) and the plane was abandoned. Some rich guy bought it for 3 grand and brought it here. It's now the bar in the middle of the restaurant.
Turns out the food was actually amazing. I had a whole fresh red snapper, Ned had shrimp with yellow curry sauce.
What an extraordinary day!
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