Costa Rica, Manuel Antonio National Park
When we woke up early in the morning and came out of our cabins, we were impressed by the beautiful place where last night’s cruise brought us. We got to see a beautiful sand beach with an amazing rain forest just behind it. The howler monkeys were making their noisy calls that can be heard two kilometers away, and parakeets and parrots were flying up in the trees.
Manuel Antonio National Park is Costa Rican’s most famous beach area, composed of three long strands of magnificent white sand, fringed by the rain forest on one side, and the Pacific Ocean on the other. The beaches are clean and wide. Above them are tall cliffs covered with dense tropical vegetation. In this national park is one of the few places in the area where the primary forest comes down to the water’s edge in places, sometimes allowing bathers to swim in the shade.
We took the trails for hiking and wildlife sighting and in a matter of a few minutes, troops of White-faced monkeys were seen busy hunting and gathering food in the top of the trees. We took some time seeing how they really check out things in search of their prey.
Soon the first Three-toed Sloth was spotted followed by the other species of Costa Rica: the Two-toed Sloth just one tree away from the other. Only in Manuel Antonio National Park this can be seen!
After our nature walks, it was very refreshing to go swimming in the turquoise water of these beaches, seeing our ship in front of us and the white sand beach at our backs, with the green lush vegetation of this amazing national park.
After lunch a large group of guests went for the adventure of the “canopy tour” (also known as zip line tour) twenty minutes away from the national park. The rest of us went back to the white sand beach for water activities.
Everybody agree that this was the perfect place and way to end our expedition cruise that took us through two countries in Central America: Panama and Costa Rica.
