Manuel Antonio National Park
Would you say that waking up at 5:30 in the morning is an early start? Well let me tell you that it is, and that’s how we started this morning at Manuel Antonio National Park in the central Pacific coast of Costa Rica. And I bet every body will agree it is worth it.
This small biological oasis of tropical humid forest, is home to many species of flora and fauna that are in danger of extinction. Today we explored the park very early, in fact we were there before it was open to the public and we had our pay back. Not far from the beginning of the trail we saw our first mammal, Long-nosed Bats, lined upside down sleeping on the bark of a tree. Close to the bats we discovered a Hoffman’s Two-toed Sloth as well as the bats in the deepest dreams. This was just one out of the eleven sloths we saw in the morning but the only two-toed, the others were the species known as the Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth (picture).
These creatures are specialized on a low-energy diet of leaves and that explains their slow moving attitude, they spend most of the day sleeping, hanging from a branch, or curled in a ball on the crotch of a tree. They feed at night and some times feed during the day. Something interesting about the Three-toed Sloth, is its mechanism to save energy. The animals allow their body temperature to drop at night, relying on sunlight to warm them up in the morning.
By the end of the hike we had seen enough and we where ready to go back to the ship for breakfast. In the afternoon we did marine wild life watching, while sailing over to the Osa Peninsula. It was not long before Capitan Luis spotted a Humpback Whale with a calf. At the peninsula we visited a beach call San Josecito for our first snorkeling experience and a little bird watching. The stars of the afternoon became the Scarlet Macaws making a display of nature’s beauty in front of our eyes.
This was only our first day of our expedition on the Sea Voyager who knows what the future has in store for us.
Would you say that waking up at 5:30 in the morning is an early start? Well let me tell you that it is, and that’s how we started this morning at Manuel Antonio National Park in the central Pacific coast of Costa Rica. And I bet every body will agree it is worth it.
This small biological oasis of tropical humid forest, is home to many species of flora and fauna that are in danger of extinction. Today we explored the park very early, in fact we were there before it was open to the public and we had our pay back. Not far from the beginning of the trail we saw our first mammal, Long-nosed Bats, lined upside down sleeping on the bark of a tree. Close to the bats we discovered a Hoffman’s Two-toed Sloth as well as the bats in the deepest dreams. This was just one out of the eleven sloths we saw in the morning but the only two-toed, the others were the species known as the Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth (picture).
These creatures are specialized on a low-energy diet of leaves and that explains their slow moving attitude, they spend most of the day sleeping, hanging from a branch, or curled in a ball on the crotch of a tree. They feed at night and some times feed during the day. Something interesting about the Three-toed Sloth, is its mechanism to save energy. The animals allow their body temperature to drop at night, relying on sunlight to warm them up in the morning.
By the end of the hike we had seen enough and we where ready to go back to the ship for breakfast. In the afternoon we did marine wild life watching, while sailing over to the Osa Peninsula. It was not long before Capitan Luis spotted a Humpback Whale with a calf. At the peninsula we visited a beach call San Josecito for our first snorkeling experience and a little bird watching. The stars of the afternoon became the Scarlet Macaws making a display of nature’s beauty in front of our eyes.
This was only our first day of our expedition on the Sea Voyager who knows what the future has in store for us.
