In the afternoon after visiting Manuel Antonio National Park, we walked to the top of the side street beside our hotel, Villas Lirio, to a private nature park.
A few from our group had visited to Mountain Top Park and returned with rave reviews and terrific photos of sloths, toucans and macaws.
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| Sloth photo by group member with telescopic lens. |
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| Toucans captured with telescopic lens. |
Despite our new friend Barry saying that ziplining had been much better than the hanging bridges tour at Selvatura Park in Monte Verde, I still regretted not doing that. This was a chance to redeem that omission.
While I knew a photographer wielding a spy-quality, telescopic-lens camera had taken the photos, I nonetheless harbored high hopes of being able to get better views of wildlife from the canopy level atop hanging bridges.
Told that it was a 10-minute walk up the hill, it was more of a 30-minute paved hike in 90-degree heat. Fortunately, friendly locals pointed us in the right direction at unmarked turns, because signage before reaching our destination was non-existent once we left the main street by our hotel.
Julie and I were able to hire Jose, the naturalist guide the others said had done an outstanding job describing wildlife and flora.
He was indeed quite knowledgeable.
The park itself was not the pristine setting we hoped private ownership might have made almost too Disney-perfect by any means.
Jose did a good job showing us plants and pointing out wildlife throughout our tour.
The park was a bit rundown, and the animals were once again elusive, but Jose did his best to keep it interesting.
He revealed toucans, a sloth and other animals through his telescope. That was considerably easier with than sharing a telescope with two dozen others as we had with our full group earlier in the day.
From ground level, the animals still seemed far away (short video linked here).
As expected, the best part of the excursion was walking on the hanging bridges and getting treetop views.
I must admit that the apparent need for maintenance added to the excitement, making it a real jungle adventure wondering if the bridge or stairs would collapse, leaving Julie and me clinging to the remnants still intact, hoping to swing to a safe ledge.
Our guide started at the bottom and took us to the mountain top, but we heard later that Barry's tour had started at the top and went down. That made for less climbing up rickety stairs...though climbing down might have felt more perilous.
At the peak, we found beautiful panoramic views on this sunny day.
At the top is a resort, for anyone who might want to stay in this nature park. From what we could see, it was not nearly as nice as the hotels we enjoyed during our Gate 1 Tour. However, there was an open-air lounge with free, ice-cold water.
We arrived as parched as the large iguana we found nearby, so we sipped water (being more adventurous, I drank the free water from the pitcher, while Julie had some from the decorative aluminum bottle we bought earlier in the day, adhering to the "no plastic bottles" rule for national park entry.
Back at the hotel, we bathed and dressed for our sunset dinner at El Lagarto, hosted by Gate 1.
This time, we didn't board a bus.
We walked to the handsome restaurant with incredible sunset views.
Our table companions for the evening were our new friends Harriet and Barry, who had survived the hanging bridges hike at Mountain Top Park.
Barry reviewed his M.T.P. excursion as, "Meh..."
I don't regret having done Mountain Top Park as a private guided excursion, but I don't want to build up your expectations should you decide to go to Costa Rica.
El Lagarto, on the other hand, I would recommend for a scenic sunset meal.
Beyond the outside views, the huge open pit barbecue oven was quite a sight to see.
We enjoyed our dining experience in this restaurant, which was a short walk from our hotel, made a bit treacherous by crossing the busy avenue. After dinner, our bus was outside the restaurant to take us on the short drive back, when the street became more perilous in the dark of night.
The dinners were delicious, though I must say we liked the actual meal better at Villas Lirio Hotel's dining room.
From a menu provided on our drive from Jaco, I had selected the Baby Back Ribs.
Julie with the Beef Tenderloin.
As frequently seems to be the case, I think she made the better choice. Having seen only a description of the beef without designation of "Filet Mignon" to which we'd become accustomed in Costa Rica probably impacted my decision to some degree.
I also simply felt like having barbecue ribs, an entree that I rarely order because of where that choice usually falls on my healthy, value and taste scale. I always enjoy ribs when I make the splurge.
I was taken aback when the ribs turned out to be a dry rub variety rather saucy. With a pit barbecue, I suppose that is a logical choice. The ribs were tasty, but I do like barbecue sauce cooked into ribs, making them juicier. These ribs were very lean.
Harriet also ordered ribs, and she thought they didn't have enough meat on them. I've seen bigger servings, but they seemed meaty enough to me. I thought the juicy grilled tomato was the highlight dish, as did Harriet and Barry. Julie gave me her tomato.
The next morning, we enjoyed another wonderful buffet breakfast at Villas Lirio, before hitting the road back to San Jose to conclude our vacation.
We would stop at another gigantic souvenir stand as a rest stop on our way.
Delicious smells wafted from restaurant, but we arrived mid-morning. I wondered why we hadn't stayed in Manuel Antonio until what would be a standard check-out time like 11 AM. That would have allowed us time to relax poolside or maybe venture down to the beach rather than leaving so early.
Leo said we would have lunch in San Jose, which would have a wider selection of eateries. Perhaps in response to requests by past guests?
In any case, we arrived at the Hilton Garden Inn well before late afternoon check-in time.
It was a picture-perfect day in San Jose, so Julie and I requested a pass to the upstairs pool when we couldn't get room keys. The rooftop pool has nice views, but we found it too windy to remain outside.
We took the McDonald's meals I'd picked up across the street and went back inside, eating our meals at a coffee table with similar views of the city.
Not long after finishing our meal, Julie and I were granted early check-in, giving us time to take a nap. This room on the 18th floor didn't have a mattress as good as we had during our first stay, when our room was on the 16th floor. That might have been just the luck of the room lottery.
In any case, we had a chance for an afternoon nap before our afternoon guided tour of San Jose was slated.
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