Manuel Antonio – Continue to the Picture Postcard Desired destination!
Manuel Antonio is the limited vacationer’s desire place. You want beautiful beaches – test, rainforest – check out, upscale accommodation and decent restaurants – check, routines this sort of as deep sea fishing, zip-lining, kayaking – examine.
In simple fact, if you only have limited time to pay a visit to Costa Rica, this modest seaside village and well known national park have just about obtained it lined! If you are a traveller in your golden many years, a family with younger small children or a vacationer with restricted mobility the simplicity of Manuel Antonio’s Park is a actual reward!
Manuel Antonio is not a city but a number of inns, dining places and souvenir stores that have sprung up on the windy highway that prospects from the bustling fishing city of Quepos to the nationwide park and its environment. Quepos also thrives from the tourism that the area attracts and has many dining establishments, bars, outlets and tours that cater to its international company.
The accommodation within just the city tends towards lower finances or backpacker with affordable and cheerful “pack ’em in” variety of hostels and lodges. For those people not on a shoe-string finances, the lodges which have been developed on the cliff tops overlooking the ocean, alongside the highway primary down to Manuel Antonio, will be the most well-liked selection of lodging for a continue to be below.
The seaside outside the house of the countrywide park, Playa Espidilla, is a massive expanse of gentle grey sand and qualified prospects into crystal clear, blue ocean. It is great for browsing, but there can be riptides, so choose treatment. Everyday living guards are ordinarily on watch at this beach front.
Manuel Antonio Countrywide Park is a person of the most well-known national parks in the nation despite being comparatively tiny. For this reason there is restricted entry into the park – 600 persons through the week and 800 guests on the weekend. Do go early to ensure that you will be admitted, primarily all through high period. On Mondays, the park is totally closed. These measures have been released to avert about-saturation of the park which has the primary objective of preserving the wildlife in it.
You can expect to see reviewers and travel guides that pinpoint the park’s level of popularity and reasonably modest region as explanations to omit it from a Costa Rican vacation itinerary. Absolutely, if you have the time and the bodily ability to hike by way of wilder jungle there are far more remote and isolated shielded areas in the place that may give you the possibility to be ensconced in nature and neglect the outside the house planet, but you shouldn’t get the impression that Manuel Antonio is all digicam-toting visitors possibly. A single of my most magical wildlife encounters in Costa Rica transpired suitable there in the center of the park!
Leaving the park as dusk approached, I was privileged to see baby turtles rising from a sandy financial institution subsequent to the path they have been burrowing frantically out of their nest pushing and shoving at their siblings in their need to leave the sand and battle down the seashore to enter the ocean. I and many others stood and watched as the small reptiles had been guided by the light reflecting off the waves to tread their way with dogged dedication in direction of their purpose conquering road blocks such as sticks and our footprints to be washed into the drinking water by a wave and bob together with just their heads exhibiting.
Another time, I was horribly transfixed by the sight of a snake slowly and gradually consuming a bat as it hung from a tree. Agoutis nibble nuts in the undergrowth, sloths sluggishly edge their way alongside branches, squirrel monkeys chattering to each and every other and the white-faced monkeys are in all places!
Essentially, glimpse out for the Capuchin Monkeys – they have learned to work collectively as successfully as any ghetto gang to steal from unsuspecting tourists! I have found lesser members of the troupe posing off in the branches overhanging a seaside and as the travelers leap from their towels ready to snap a pic of the “oh-so-adorable very little detail” their dad and mom, aunts, uncles and just about every other member of the family are sneaking around and ransacking the unattended bags! I watched helplessly as my solar tan lotion was triumphantly carried off by a single furry robber, but was luckily dropped a couple ft absent with disgust when it wasn’t edible!
Much from currently being so above-populated with tourists that the wildlife has fled they can be all far too evident! On a far more serious be aware, the Manuel Antonio monkeys are thought to have a shorter lifespan then these outdoors of the park due to the high cholesterol intake in their systems from consuming human food – remember to never feed them!
The four seashores within the park are safer swimming places than outside of it, as they are protected by the bays that sort them. Manuel Antonio, Espadilla Sur, Playita and Escondido seashores are all accessible by perfectly-taken care of trails and the much more formidable walker can consider a circuit close to Punta Cathedral as well. The place is on a tombolo – an island now joined to the land by a sand strip. The jungle paths are perfect chances to stroll alongside with a sharp eye and mindful ear to place the animals in the undergrowth and higher than you in the trees.
Enter the park by La Posada Hotel and pay back your $6 to $10 entrance cost with young children beneath 12 becoming free. If you leave by the beach front exit and the river is high pay back to acquire the boat throughout somewhat than wade in. The river is sometimes polluted and is rumoured to include crocodiles!
The park was outlined on the Forbes 2011 compilation of the “12 Most Beautiful National Parks in the Earth”, if you essential more affirmation of its charms.
Outside the house of the park, you may find lots of tour corporations eager to just take you on a whole host of other adventures, these kinds of as zip-lining, deep-sea fishing, snorkelling and considerably much more. Tour guides are readily available to get you close to the park, so you never overlook a solitary tree frog hiding beneath a leaf and for a lot more information on the flora and fauna of the region.
Only about a 3 hour drive from San Jose, Manuel Antonio is 1 of the closest shorelines to the Central Valley and is seriously really worth viewing. GPS co-ordinates for the centre of Quepos are 9.43306,-84.161932.