Manuel Antonio

Homo sapien Americanus is the largest and most vocal of the subspecies. They are often found in large groups and can be differentiated by their pale skin, wide girth, and large appetite. I'd love to write that field guide....


Anyway, we spent the day today at Manuel Antonio National Park. It came highly recommended by both local Ticos and friends alike. Well, once again....maybe on the off season. I shouldn't be so critical though. We decided to "risk" not paying for a guide in Manuel Antonio. We'd heard that of all the parks in Costa Rica, this one was the one in which the wildlife was most easily seen. I'll say, its like shooting fish in a goldfish bowl! So if you go to a park in the morning--like when it opens (7 a.m for most parks), but don't hire a guide, chances are you will follow behind about 15-20 groups of suckers that DID pay. We simply waited until the herds of H.s. Americanus stalled at a certain point, and then focused our attention in that area. Boy does that ever piss off the guides! Truthfully though, we saw as much using our own spotting skills as we did with the guides'. Overall we saw a boatload of sloths--we think both the two and three-toed variety, white-faced capuchin monkeys, howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys, agouti (like a big guinea pig), a raccoon, a coati, a few ctenosaurus (like a very large iguana), a few basilisk lizards (also called jesus christ lizards because they walk on water), several types of anoles, a pair ofBaird's trogon, a tinamou, a Great Kiskadees, some brown boobies, and I caught a glimpse of a toucan. Pretty fulfilling day! I developed a keen eye for spotting sloths (which by the end of the day were found just about everywhere) while Isaac mastered the trogon spotting. Ok, so we had fun. The beaches left a lot to be desired--perhaps because they were crowded and filled with monkeys that tried to steal our food or because the surf was so raucous probably due to a storm offshore. Anyway, the hikes (minus the initial "trail" which is wider and flatter than most of the roads in Costa Rica) were fun. We managed to spend the entire day there and actually got "escorted" out by a pissed off ranger that found us gawking at yet another sloth! We returned to Plinios to find that there was no room for us for tonight, but the friendly bartender, Juan, called a friend who rented us an apartment for the night. This same friend also happens to know our good friends, the Browns. It pays to name drop!