A Trip to Manuel Antonio National Park
The stunning beaches of Manuel Antonio National Park
From the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica it was a long day of travel, via the capital city San José, to Quepos. Nestled on the Pacific coast of the country, the town is a hub for accessing Costa Rica’s most visited national park: Manuel Antonio.
Our brief stint in the capital city didn’t leave a great impression. We were only there long enough to change bus stations, but still managed to get stuck with a taxi driver intent on scamming us. Sure, I expect to pay tourist prices for a taxi, it’s annoying but just the way it is. However, this guy went one further, insisting that the bus we were trying to get didn’t exist and we needed to go to another bus station… which happened to be an hour drive away. He even phoned up an accomplice and told me it was the bus ticket office - whoever was on the other end was telling me there was no buses to Quepos in the afternoon. Luckily I put my foot down and insisted he took us where we wanted to go, and we got tickets for a bus just 45 mins after we arrived. Sigh. I find it really sad that he will have deliberately misled people and left them god knows where. We learnt our lesson and stuck to Uber when we were back in the capital city later that week.
Last minute plans don’t always work
Our hostel in Quepos was probably one of the nicest we have stayed in, with a big kitchen, a terrace with hammocks and a pool that actually looked inviting - a first for the trip to date! It was a good job really, as we unexpectedly spent two days lazing on the sun beds and dipping in the pool. We had known the national park was closed on Tuesdays - the day after we arrived - however we didn’t expect it to be sold on on Wednesday. Whoops. Sometimes last minute plans and flexibility backfire. So we pre-booked our entrance for the Thursday and settled in to really relax.
There are beaches accessible by bus from Quepos, but having spent the last 2 weeks lounging on sand we were quite happy to relax by the pool and read our books (and catch up with this blog!) for a change. In the evenings we walked to the marina and watched the sun go down… I have to say I had missed the pacific sunsets. They are just that bit more spectacular.
Soon it was Thursday and, thoroughly refreshed, we hopped on the local bus to Manuel Antonio National Park.
Exploring Manuel Antonio
As we had discovered already, Manuel Antonio National Park is a renowned nature reserve in Costa Rica, known for its diverse wildlife and pristine beaches, and is so popular that entry is capped each day. There is a mix of tourists who are there to spot wildlife, and locals who pay a much smaller fee to access the parks beaches.
Once again, we opted not to go in with a guide. We felt we had a great experience at Cahuita National Park without, and had seen a lot of animals already. We were realistic and knew it was possible we would see nothing, but we felt even if we had a nice walk in the jungle and saw beautiful beaches it would be a lovely day - wildlife would be a bonus.
Indeed, the park features lush rainforests that are criss-crossed with hiking trails leading to beautiful viewpoints, and an abundance of flora and fauna.
Almost immediately on entry we saw a beautiful red-tailed bird. Of course, if we had a guide we would know more about it, but knowing it’s name doesn’t make a lot of difference to us. The deeper we got into the trail the more we saw, until we were quite literally falling over to move out of the way of animals! We saw several sloths - helped by my binoculars and sleuthing where other groups were stopped, craning their necks. We saw monkeys, lizards, an iguana, loads of colourful birds and even bumped into a family of coatis who followed us down the trail for a few hundred metres.
We know we were very lucky with the abundance of wildlife we saw, but after a few hours the intense humidity of the forest was too much - the beach was calling! The beaches within the park are stunning. The two largest ones - playa espadilla sur and playa Manuel Antonio - form a double bay of fine white sand either side of Punta Catedral. We chose playa Manuel Antonio to relax for a few hours, dipping in the water every now and then to escape the incoming heat of the day.
On our way back to the hostel we stopped at the bus station to get our tickets back to San Jose in the morning. Although the capital hadn’t exactly endeared itself to us, we were excited to return as we had a very important visitor meeting us there!
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