Costa Rica Part III: Manuel Antonio National Park
After our adventures in Orosi, Mike and I headed back to San Jose to meet up with Rob and his girlfriend, Amy, and Mike's parents, Jerry and Carey. The following day we would all head to Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific Coast. Jerry and Carey were unfailingly gracious and generous hosts, and the trip was a great opportunity to get to know them and Rob and Amy better.
After a night in San Jose, we loaded up a rented SUV (mercifully equipped with GPS!) to drive to Manuel Antonio. As you can imagine, traveling with six people and all of our bags was a bit more complicated than the trip to Orosi and Cartago. Here's Rob helping tie some of the suitcases to the top of the car before we all piled in:
At Manuel Antonio, we stayed at a beautiful resort whose catchphrase was "Still more monkeys than people." Our room had an incredible view of the Pacific Ocean just beyond the swimming pool:
Apparently the hotel was owned by a former pilot, which explains the room made out of the inside of an airplane.
On our first day in Manuel Antonio, we went on a guided nature walk through the national park. Our guide, Franklin, was incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about the Costa Rican flora and fauna. He was an expert and finding interesting creatures in the trees and setting up his "spotters' scope"--a sort of short range telescope on a tripod--so that the rest of us could see them. He was so good at finding things, in fact, that we started to joke that the spotters' scope contained slides of various animals, so that he could point it off into the rain forest in any direction and cue up a slide of some bats or a sloth.
Franklin was the perfect guide, and he found all kinds of neat things for us to see, like these Capuchin monkeys:
A cleverly disguised "stick bird":
And several sloths (if you look carefully, you should be able to see it hanging from a tree in the center of the picture):
The following day, our accommodations lived up to their claim that we would see more monkeys than people there. We woke up to find a whole troupe of Capuchin monkeys frolicking on the pool deck below our room. They ran all over the place, climbing on the canopy over the bar and sliding down it, and scurrying up trees and jumping from one to the next. Two of them even hopped up onto the railing of our balcony where we sat watching them. They paused on the rail for a moment, regarded me and Amy, and seemed to decided that four feet was as close as they wanted to get!
After our exciting morning of monkey-watching, we took to the sea so that Rob could go scuba diving. The rest of us were slated to go snorkeling, but unfortunately the water was too rough to see much of anything, except for a large school of colorful fish than swam all around us for a few minutes. For the rest of the day, we just enjoyed relaxing in the sun on the boat. It was a lovely morning, and we made it to shore just as it started to turn a bit stormy in the afternoon. A few of the party got a bit sea-sick, but I'm not naming any names here... A few hours later, everyone felt well enough to enjoy the best key lime pie any of us had ever tasted!
On our last morning in Manuel Antonio, Rob and Amy took off to visit a village outside of San Jose for a day, and the rest of us enjoyed a zip-line canopy tour. The tour was the perfect blend of sight-seeing and adventure, as we cruised through the rain forest canopy on zip-lines and rope swings. Strapped into rock-climbing harnesses, we hiked up a hill to begin our journey. The tour consisted of a series of platforms high in the trees, which were connected by ten zip-lines, one "tarzan swing," two rappels, and one rope-bridge. Riding the zip-lines was exhilarating, and the beautiful rain forest canopy that we flew by made it even more incredible. For the last rappel, our guides thought it would be funny to surprise me with a little free-fall. They told me to put my hands behind my head, and they would control the rappel for me. As Mike and his parents will gladly tell you, I screamed like you wouldn't believe on the way down. The fall caught me a little off guard, and afterwards I was shaking (but smiling) for quite a while. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from the tour yet, but if I get some later on, I'll be sure to post them.
The following day marked the end of the trip for Mike and me. We headed back to San Jose to fly back to Chicago, while the rest of the group prepared to continue their journey with a trip to the mountains to see a volcano and the famous cloud forest of Monteverde. The trip was an unforgettable experience, both in terms of what we got to see and do, and just as a chance to spend time with Mike's wonderful family. Thank you so much for inviting me to share in this incredible adventure!
After a night in San Jose, we loaded up a rented SUV (mercifully equipped with GPS!) to drive to Manuel Antonio. As you can imagine, traveling with six people and all of our bags was a bit more complicated than the trip to Orosi and Cartago. Here's Rob helping tie some of the suitcases to the top of the car before we all piled in:
At Manuel Antonio, we stayed at a beautiful resort whose catchphrase was "Still more monkeys than people." Our room had an incredible view of the Pacific Ocean just beyond the swimming pool:
Apparently the hotel was owned by a former pilot, which explains the room made out of the inside of an airplane.
On our first day in Manuel Antonio, we went on a guided nature walk through the national park. Our guide, Franklin, was incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about the Costa Rican flora and fauna. He was an expert and finding interesting creatures in the trees and setting up his "spotters' scope"--a sort of short range telescope on a tripod--so that the rest of us could see them. He was so good at finding things, in fact, that we started to joke that the spotters' scope contained slides of various animals, so that he could point it off into the rain forest in any direction and cue up a slide of some bats or a sloth.
Franklin was the perfect guide, and he found all kinds of neat things for us to see, like these Capuchin monkeys:
A cleverly disguised "stick bird":
And several sloths (if you look carefully, you should be able to see it hanging from a tree in the center of the picture):
The following day, our accommodations lived up to their claim that we would see more monkeys than people there. We woke up to find a whole troupe of Capuchin monkeys frolicking on the pool deck below our room. They ran all over the place, climbing on the canopy over the bar and sliding down it, and scurrying up trees and jumping from one to the next. Two of them even hopped up onto the railing of our balcony where we sat watching them. They paused on the rail for a moment, regarded me and Amy, and seemed to decided that four feet was as close as they wanted to get!
After our exciting morning of monkey-watching, we took to the sea so that Rob could go scuba diving. The rest of us were slated to go snorkeling, but unfortunately the water was too rough to see much of anything, except for a large school of colorful fish than swam all around us for a few minutes. For the rest of the day, we just enjoyed relaxing in the sun on the boat. It was a lovely morning, and we made it to shore just as it started to turn a bit stormy in the afternoon. A few of the party got a bit sea-sick, but I'm not naming any names here... A few hours later, everyone felt well enough to enjoy the best key lime pie any of us had ever tasted!
On our last morning in Manuel Antonio, Rob and Amy took off to visit a village outside of San Jose for a day, and the rest of us enjoyed a zip-line canopy tour. The tour was the perfect blend of sight-seeing and adventure, as we cruised through the rain forest canopy on zip-lines and rope swings. Strapped into rock-climbing harnesses, we hiked up a hill to begin our journey. The tour consisted of a series of platforms high in the trees, which were connected by ten zip-lines, one "tarzan swing," two rappels, and one rope-bridge. Riding the zip-lines was exhilarating, and the beautiful rain forest canopy that we flew by made it even more incredible. For the last rappel, our guides thought it would be funny to surprise me with a little free-fall. They told me to put my hands behind my head, and they would control the rappel for me. As Mike and his parents will gladly tell you, I screamed like you wouldn't believe on the way down. The fall caught me a little off guard, and afterwards I was shaking (but smiling) for quite a while. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from the tour yet, but if I get some later on, I'll be sure to post them.
The following day marked the end of the trip for Mike and me. We headed back to San Jose to fly back to Chicago, while the rest of the group prepared to continue their journey with a trip to the mountains to see a volcano and the famous cloud forest of Monteverde. The trip was an unforgettable experience, both in terms of what we got to see and do, and just as a chance to spend time with Mike's wonderful family. Thank you so much for inviting me to share in this incredible adventure!
posted by Erin Kay at 9:12 AM
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