Manuel Antonio - Part Two

Our last day arrived. Time for the main attraction. Manuel Antonio National Park. You have to buy tickets in advance. Passport numbers are required. They only admit a certain amount of visitors per time slot and are closed on Tuesday. When I tried to book tickets weeks before we departed I had to try various time slots until I could find one that allowed all four of us. It is not a user friendly website so I'd say book in advance! 

Manuel Antonio National Park is considered one of the most biodiverse parks in the world, with a population of 109 types of mammal and 184 types of bird, among other species. At just 16 square kilometres, Manuel Antonio is the smallest of Costa Rica’s 161 national parks but the most visited.

We opted not to get a guide.. though I was having doubts the day of since we hadn't really seen as many animals on this trip as I had expected. When we asked at the ticket booth they had no more guides available.. but thankfully we saw our first animal within minutes of entry. Relief. 

We started on the purple route them went on the blue, took red down to the first beach then walked up the yellow to enjoy the second beach (more secluded) then joined the pink and exited the park. 

On to the animals

There are three monkey's that call Manuel Antonio their home; Howler Monkey, White Faced Capuchin Monkey and the Squirrel Monkey. We only saw the capuchin monkey. They had no fear of humans and if not looking would run off with your stuff. Fun monkey video here.

Then there were the reptiles

This is a Fer-de-lance snake, it is the most dangerous snake of Central and South America and causes more human deaths than any other American reptile.

Black spiny-tailed iguana

Not sure if they are both the same species.. they did look different but could be a male and a female? I did look at many iguana pictures online to see if I could figure it out. 

The beach

and finally the sloths, both two and three toed sloths reside in the park. See a video of a sloth on the move here

The park closed at four and we had no choice but to leave this paradise and head back to reality. 

After we got cleaned up we decided to go to Emilio's Cafe for some coffee and dessert. We played some Uno and watched the sun go down. And then had dinner at Tico Rico. None of the meals in Manuel Antonio blew us away hence no pictures. 

The next morning we got ready to leave. Bade farewell to Manuel Antonio and started to make the three hour drive back to San Jose. Tired of eating the same gallo pinto each morning we stopped at the Anaconda Cafe first.

The place was full of monkeys, one stole a pepper shaker right off the table next to us.
 

I still felt like I hadn't tried enough exotic fruits so we thought we'd stop at the Central Market in San Jose before heading to the airport. We had enough time.

But weather didn't cooperate, it wanted to give us one last rain, considerably slowing down our drive. Fortunately we saw a large fruit stall on the side of the road and stopped.

We picked a few things at random. First we ate the rambutans, those red spiky guys in the picture above. M and I had had them before in Singapore. For those of you who have never tried one it is similar to a lychee. 

Next we tried the malay apple or manzana de agua. It tasted like a very watery pear. This was my least favorite. It tasted like nothing.  

 

Last was the purple spheres above. We bought it but didn't know what it was or how to eat it. We were in the car so I had no utensils. After a quick Google search we discovered you eat the insides, not the skin so I had no choice but to rip it open. Video here. 

H had a lego piece in his backpack and we macgyver'ed it into a spoon.. lol. It was very sweet. It is called a star apple. It had large black seeds and it reminded me of a custard apple. It was very good just wish we were eating it under better circumstances.. but hey it was part of the adventure. 

And that's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed our journey. 

 

       Etsy           Instagram           Twitter           Redbubble           Zazzle           Society6