Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio

In the morning we got us early to take the one hour drive to the National Park Manuel Antonio. Before we headed out we had encountered that there is a reservation system and you have to buy the tickets online for a certain time slot. Buuut the reservations for today and tomorrow were completely booked. We decided to go there anyway and see if there's anything we can do at the gate. Already a few kilometers ahead of the park entrance all arriving cars were swarmed by "guides" helping you with the park entrance. But they said it's fully booked for today and tomorrow.
We drove a little bit back to the hostel and hotel area where Julia asked to join a tour. At the second spot we got an offer and accepted it for noon. We had more than two hours until it departed so we spent some time at the beach swimming and sun bathing and had a little breakfast. We entered the park at 12 and right after the entrance the tour guide spotted a sloth. There was a lot of wildlife all around: sloths, agoutis, three different species of monkeys, a basilisk and lots of big lizards and hermit crabs at the beaches. The highlight was definitely a sloth that was just about 8 metres away in a low hanging branch and extremely active. It was looking around all the time and watching us and the monkeys jumping around on nearby branches. A very special moment seeing this unique animal so close 🥰 Just a few minutes later Julia spotted an agouti at a small river bed foraging for food. The tour guide showed us overall 4 more sloths in the trees along the trails, one of them sleeping with it's baby 😍🦥 After we finished the guided tour we were left at the beautiful clear beaches of the Manuel Antonio National Park with a really fine sand. The water wasn't that clear and when Julia went snorkeling she couldn't see a lot. But we only had an hour left anyways before the beaches closed. Unfortunately some of the trails and facilities were closed in the park so we left shortly afterwards.

For the evening we had decided to check out a campground about an hour away. We wanted to be there early enough because of the New Year celebrations. And the owners were still home, a Swiss couple that had moved to Costa Rica 10 years ago and bought the house and surrounding lot. They were really nice and sweet, so we felt welcome. They went out for a party later and we also went out to get pizzas and wine for the night and to celebrate the New Year together 🥳Læs mere