Descriptions of Manuel Antonio National Park nature tours claim you will "heighten your chances" of seeing the "rarest wildlife."
That is true.
Even with trained naturalist Leo as our guide, not to mention the huge clue of clustered tour groups gazing through telescopes at specific locations, we barely spied sloths, toucans, snakes and other animals during our visual safari into "the biologically rich jungle" of Manuel Antonio.
Beyond knowing where to look, spotting the rarest species usually requires a telescope or a camera with a long zoom lens.
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| "See it?!! Up in that tree, on the branch!" |
We would see people positioning their smart phones to take photos through telescope with some degree of luck, but I had difficulty seeing most of them clearly and suspect there were a lot of "sweet lemon" sightings.
People like being part of the crowd that sees something cool.
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| Zoomed in Closer |
Frequently I would only see shapes that, for example, might be a sloth in a shadow, or a panther (unlikely) or a dark bump, not at eye level, but on a branch 100 feet up a tree that was virtually indistinguishable from the forest surrounding it.
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| Zoomed in close. What is it? |
On the other hand, monkeys abounded in Manuel Antonio.
Monkeys put on funny comedy skits for us, beginning with jumping around on the roof of the ticket stand where we stood waiting for Leo to buy tickets for the group.
It seemed strange to me that skip-the-line tickets weren't purchased in advance for our group. Then again, maybe Leo was just picking up pre-purchased tickets.
In any case, we had to wait in line while he took care of business.
This was a "summer" Sunday, so lots of families joined the tourists in one of Costa Rica's most famous national parks.
The trail we "hiked" along was as wide as a street. With lots of groups meandering along, it was far from secluded.
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| What was that supposed to be? Oh, a giant ant hill. |
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| Note the photo-bombing little monkey up in the tree. |
It's good to remember that you don't need to constantly be amazed to be quite amused when hiking through nature.
With temperatures already in the 80s early in the day, it was understandable why Leo's directions said to bring towels for a beach day.
He wouldn't want to risk anyone in his mostly above middle-aged group having a heat stroke.
Of course, Julie and I had our own beach day on Saturday, when much of our tour group went on a catamaran trip, so we wanted more jungle time.
We planned to stay with the group for the guided tour --- a bit disappointed to see that would be only 30 minutes --- and group's beach time, but then remain in the national park to explore on our own well into the afternoon, with an afternoon iced coffee at the same place as the day before.
I had gotten so fried at the beach on Saturday, however, I planned to stay in the shade during the beach time. After the nature hike to get there, the seawater looked refreshing at the little cove when we arrived.
We could leave our valuables on the benches next to Leo so that we could both be in the water at the same time without too much worry. I couldn't resist, and we had a nice time standng in the warm water together.
The beach and bay soon became considerably more crowded than Manuel Antonio public beach the day before or the open beach in Jaco on Friday.
After a half hour of the scheduled two hours, we dried off and told Leo we were going to explore the park on our own and then take the public bus back to the hotel rather than ride back with the group.
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| Notice the large lizard in the sand. |
Recognizing that we had hiked several times on our own, Leo advised that if we felt prepared for a strenuous uphill hike, he recommended the trail to Punta Catedral, giving us directions to catch the path.
He said there would be beautiful, panoramic views down on the coast. He added we might have the opportunity to spot a whale like they had seen on the catamaran the prior day, but this was quite late in the season.
We set off along the jungle path, soon coming upon another beach, much wider than the cove where several other groups had joined our group shortly after we arrived.
Perhaps tour groups converge on that cove because the condensed space makes it easier for our "shepherd" guides to watch their "flocks" of tourists.
In any case, this other beach we passed on the right side of our path was much more beautiful, IMO. Not surprisingly, it was the national park's private section of the same beach where we had pleasantly spent the prior day.
This playa was even less crowded than the public part had been.
Tempting as it was to plop down in the sand and head out in the water, we were still fried. Plus, we had a destination in mind.
As we walked, we saw mischievous monkeys sneaking up to raid the backpacks of unsuspecting sun worshippers.
"Monkey thief," we yelled.
The beachgoers jumped to their feet and shooed the monkey away...eventually.
As we walked along, a variation of that little comedy replayed repeatedly on the beach.
That monkey was determined to find a snack.
Ascending up from the beach into jungle on both sides, a monkey followed us. Was he the same one, looking for revenge?
Possibly, but if he was the same one, he was one of dozens that we saw as we hiked uphill.
The monkeys aren't intimidated by humans. This is their home.
If anything, they were disappointed that we followed the park rules of not feeding the monkeys. Apparently some previous tourists had, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
Monkeys stayed with us all the way to the lookout point at the top, where the panoramic views of the coast were indeed quite lovely.
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We didn't see any whales spouting or breaching on this January day.
According to a sign, whale season only goes until November, and this was late January.
We hadn't even considered seeing whales on this vacation, so we weren't disappointed.
Hiking around the loop didn't turn out to be downhill all the way back as we hoped.
The general trend was back to sea level, but more like a roller coaster than a ski slope...at a much slower pace.
Monkeys continued to accompany us.
Mama Monkey decided to let us pass. She wasn't exactly King Kong.
By the time we reached sea level, we were tuckered out. Rather than stay in the park, where we had been told animals would become less active and harder to spot on this hot day, we decided to walk to town for an early iced coffee.
That would be a continuation of our long hike on what might become a sweltering day.
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| Blue Crab bids us farewell as we hike toward exit. |
To our surprise, despite being well behind the scheduled time for the group to depart, we came upon Leo, who was waiting for a man whose wife had gotten separated while shopping. We decided to take advantage of this serendipity by telling him we would ride back after all.
Julie and I walked to the bus. Eventually, the missing woman, her husband (who turned out to be the guy who had bad knees at the zipline tour in Monteverde) and Leo had all joined us on the bus for the short ride back to our hotel.
We had devoured big, delicious breakfasts before going to the park, and we knew we had a group dinner that evening, so we had chips, nuts and granola bars in the room rather than a full lunch. A dip in our hotel pool cooled and revitalized us for our final afternoon and evening in Manuel Antonio.
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