Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica

Today was our first day of the seven-day trip between Costa Rica and Panama, and what a beautiful day we had.

We anchored right in front of what people consider one of the jewels of the national park system in Costa Rica, Manuel Antonio National Park. It is one of the smallest parks in this country, but as they say, beauty comes in small packages and this is living proof of it.

This park has a beautiful combination of long sandy beaches and tropical rainforest, that make this place a great spot for having a beach day or an ideal place for a hike into the forest to look for wild life or in our case both.
This place does not have many large predators. Since it is one of the smallest parks in the country it has proven to be too small for large animals; especially large predators that prey on medium sized animals. Therefore, these medium side animals have had an increase of population making this area ideal for sighting monkeys, sloths, raccoons, agouties, coatis and more.

Today, we were able to sample this on our different hikes in the park. We had many sightings of three-toed sloth, howler monkeys, agouties and even the elusive two-toed sloth.

After our morning hikes into the humid tropical rainforest, we were ready for a nice swim in the warm wares of the Pacific Ocean before going back on board the National Geographic Sea Lion.