Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica
Today we had the opportunity to visit the picturesque Manuel Antonio National Park. Established in 1972, the country’s smallest national park has one of the most diverse wildlife in its 683 hectares of protected area. With its combination of rain forest, beaches and people, its beauty is unequaled.
On this day we had the choice of taking two interpretative walks, the mirador trail and the sloth valley walk. The first one with astonishing forest and scenic views over the ocean and the second one with sandy trails that took us right into the middle of the intensity of wildlife.
On both trails we were able to spot white throated capuchin monkeys and howler monkeys, together with agoutis, three-toed sloths, two toed sloths, raccoons, roadside hawks, fiery billed toucans, spiny tailed lizards, and many other small little flying or land critters.
After enjoying our morning in such a bountiful place, we came back in the afternoon just to enjoy a refreshing dip on the beach in waters that were close to the 85°F.
As we started repositioning to our final destination, Herradura, several islands within the park’s boundaries that serve as important nesting grounds for birds like the brown booby and magnificent frigate birds gave us our last view of wildlife of this protected park.
The volcanic sedimentary cliffs rise steeply from the shoreline, providing scenic views and hiking trails and becoming also an important refuge for a variety of organisms. Unfortunately, the site is now surrounded by tourism development that has brought a need to create a corridor for this otherwise ecological island since is completely separated from any nearby forest. In the future, the health of this biodiversity site is going to depend on the strength of this corridor, providing the park with important top predators that are going to bring a balance to a very delicate tropical food chain.
In the afternoon, Maguil, one of our local Costa Rican naturalist, gave us a brief lecture of Costa Rica’s history and show us how is related to a good cup of coffee.
In the end, we all said goodbye as we enjoy our final cocktails and reflect on all the good memories of our trip since day one when we were crossing the Panama Canal while watching the group photo slideshow. This how we enjoy the Pura Vida life in Costa Rica and Panama.
