Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica

Today we began our day anchored close to the dramatic shoreline of Manuel Antonio National Park, the Crown Jewel of Costa Rica’s renowned system of protected areas and reserves. We went ashore early to beat other park visitors and to take advantage of cooler temperatures and peak wildlife activity. We were not disappointed, we had excellent sightings of two-toed and three-toed sloths, white-faced Capuchin monkeys, saw a rather tame white-tailed deer and some of us also saw some Coatimundis. Of course some of the wildlife seemed to be watching us – see picture of the resident Ctenosaur above. These iguana relatives were enjoying the sunshine, as we took the opportunity for a quick swim before returning to the ship for breakfast!
During breakfast we left Manuel Antonio and sailed towards the Nicoya Peninsula and our destination for the afternoon Curu Wildlife Refuge. At Curu we split into groups in search of more wildlife and some beautiful forest walks. The highlight of our afternoon was a fabulous display by a group of Scarlet Macaws who flew noisily around and then began feeding on a Royal Poinciana tree.

We ended our first day mighty satisfied, monkeys sloths, macaws and so much more and looked forward to more adventures tomorrow.