Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica

Diary:

Today we visited one of the most popular national parks in Costa Rica, Manuel Antonio. It is located on the Pacific Coast near the town Quepos.

We had not planned to visit this park but after hearing so many good things about it from other travellers we decided to check it out.

From the minute we entered the park and started hiking along the nature trails which meandered over sandy beaches and through lush tropical rain forest, we spotted an endless procession of local wildlife we'd never seen before. Huge iguanas, white faced monkeys, howler monkeys and endangered titi monkeys, hermit crabs, leaf-cutter ants, a baby alligator, three-toed sloths (with babies), racoons, agoutis and white-nosed coatis were all encountered.

And, of course, no matter where we were, a beach was never too far away. Whenever we got too hot we jumped in for a refreshing swim to cool off. As we ate a simple picnic lunch on the beach we were continually visited by monkeys coming down from the trees or iguanas trying to evict us off their turf with their comical head-raising-and-lowering antics (apparently iguanas are very territorial).

All up, we had a great day. Manuel Antonio is well worth the visit.

Photos: (click on images to see full size)