Quepos, Costa Rica

 Time for our last National Park tour. This time to the very popular Manual Antonio NP. We had read that parking is crazy there so opted to take a local bus. Just 380 colones or something like 75 cents USD for the 35 minute ride. Waited at the bus station for about 10 minutes. 

The bus eventually filled with local workers along the steep curvy road. 

Heavy overcast skies but nicely kept the temps reasonable. 

Public beach outside the park. 

Last night we had gone online and got our tickets ( the only way to enter). By this morning they were completely sold out. They limit entry and you get a 1 hour slot to arrive. 

Lots of normal floura.  

And lots of weird vines. 

Little waterfall we walked a mile round trip to see. A little underwhelming, haha. 

Strange very sharp spikes on a palm tree I’d never seen before. I guess the tree wants no climbers!  I walked off the path to test them. Really hard and sharp!

We did see lots of fauna in this park. Really hard to get good photos as they were often far away or hidden in the dense growth.  I believe this is an agouti. 

This is a photo from the web for reference. They’re  related to the guinea pig.

Cool palm trees with dangling fruit  

I believe this is a coati like we’d seen in the side of the road in La Fortuna. 

And we saw several white faced monkeys. They did not appear to be too frightened of us but they also weren’t begging for food. The park searched backpacks as there is a strict no food policy. 

Really cool colorful land crab. 

More monkeys. 

And a couple of small whitetail deer that were not afraid of us. 

Very nice trails, not muddy like several we’ve been on.  This is the most visited park in CR so I guess gets lots of attention. 

A cool double termite mound. This one has what appears to be a tunnel connecting the two pods. 

Another agouti nibbling on a nut. 

And more white faced monkeys. 

We also saw a sloth and a howler monkey up very high in the canopy. My photos were not detailed enough to bother showing. 

Walking back along the pretty coastline. 

A few more animal encounters.

And after 4.5 miles of trails, we easily caught the bus back to Quepos. This time it was eventually standing room only as it appeared many workers shift had ended at 3pm and they were heading home. 

We were in for the night and we’ll have to pack up to start our journey back to San Jose for our flight home the next day.