Day 70. A not so fun day at the park.

On the 3rd day we went to Manuel antonio nature park. You had to buy tickets online before, otherwise it would be sold out. We had the first time slot, and quickly walked passed a few big tour groups. We first walked though some forest. There is a pathway that leads you through the park. There were a lot of people talking loudly, so we took a path to the right, away from them. Here it was still very quiet and we saw a kind of big ginneapig, but smaller than a capybara. The forest turned in a mangrove forest and we saw some crabs. We came to the beach were there were one or two people swimming, and there were some leguans. We walked further and there were so many people! From this moment it was not like a nature park anymore. It was more like an entertainment park, where big groups of americans are being led by a tourguide from animal to animal (they didn't see more than we did, the guides just talk a lot to make it interesting), not looking themselves, not realising animals do not like loud talking. It is like a zoo. But the animals were not in cages, so they all fled for the big amount of loud people on the paths. Even the tourguides screamed so that everybody in the big groups could hear it. We heard one tourguide really screaming: "monkeys! Where are you?!"
We saw a big group standing and watching up, and there was a sloth with a baby hanging in the tree. We think it was too slow to be able to flee the hordes of people 😢
Because you cant take food, and no non-reusable plastic bottels, we had no water. We had to throw our bottle (that we already re-use since we are here) away... so we ordered two cola and two sandwiches (very dry, not even a tomato on it) for 24 euro. So it also has zoo prices.
We saw some capucin monkeys when we took a path that was signed as 'hard'. We guess the hordes do not like 'hard' so it was a little bit more quiet here. We heard the 'brulapen' in the distance but they didn't show themselves. We wouldn't either.
There was also a moment where Nina found a turtle, pefectly camouflaged between some leaves, and emediately a tourguide came almost running, screaming"and here is the turtle what i was talking about before!" He really took our spot. We were looking at the turtle in peace, but we got basically pushed away.
Although we could be in the park 4 more hours, we decided to leave. There were also hardly any bird sounds, so it didn't make sense to stay. It was a horrible experience. We hope we will never see something like this again. It is a nature park to preserve the animals, but the animals dont want to be there anymore because of all the people. They really need to change a lot if they really want to save the animals.
Outside of the park we finally could get something to drink again and went to the beach. There was a small piece of forest where big leguans hung out, and we went crocodile searching at the tiny river with the "watch out! Crocodiles!" Sign.
Didn't see any. And then a group of capucin monkeys emerged out of the trees! They were very funny and tried to steal stuff from some people. They didn't manage it, so then they pulled a fresh piece of ananas and a fresh watermelon peel out of the trash cans 🤭
It was very hot, so we went home. We could have taken a swim there, but we didn't have sunblock with us, because that was also not allowed in the park (and really really expensive her in costa rica!).
Back at the camp, we had fun again. Playing in the waves 🩵Read more