Manuel Antonio National Park is compact yet has lots of wildlife. We took a guided tour and did some hiking on our own.
Our tour included two Frenchwomen from Biarritz. Steve got to practice his French since our guide didn’t speak French. They said he had a good accent. (I look forward to the time we go to a French-speaking country and HE can do the talking!)
We saw capuchin monkeys, a Jesus Christ lizard (so-called because they can run on top of water), a spiny-tailed lizard, one of our best views of sloths, a pregnant spider monkey much bigger than the male, a masked tree frog, beach raccoons (banditos!, as our guide called them), agouti, land crabs, zebra grasshoppers, and hummingbirds.
Our guided tour ended at the beach inside the park. From there we hiked around el cathedral (the cathedral). We saw a hawk, we think, with a nest. We also saw agoutis playing/fighting. And lots of very tall trees. It was a nice hike; not too difficult, with pretty views of the sea.
After the hike we hung out at Manual Antonio beach for a while. It’s the nicest beach we saw on the trip; a nice swimming beach. It’s a 20 minute walk from the park entrance, so people come for the day. An iguana climbed down the tree Steve was sitting on.
We saw raccoons in the pathway as we were leaving. I don’t think we’ve ever seen raccoons at the beach during the daytime. And while we didn’t see a lot of birds in the park, we did see this one on the way out.
