We had a great stay in Uvita, and this morning we headed out for Manuel Antonio National Park. Quepos is a harbor town located in the province of Puntarenas and is the gateway to Manuel Antonio. This town is named after the indigenous people of the area, the Quepos natives. We took a short break and watched a couple of fishing boats navigating the channel heading into the harbor and took time for Ann to get a new pair of sunglasses. Back in the car we had another 7km to reach the park. Most of the national parks in Costa Rica now have timed entries and our tickets were between 9-9:40 am, with a tour scheduled for 11am.
Established in 1972, Manuel Antonio National Park is the country’s smallest national park. It is one of the most beautiful and bio-diverse areas in the world in its 683 hectares. The park includes rain forest, beaches, and coral reefs and is home to sloths, iguanas, monkeys and millions of colorful little crabs.
About three years ago they established a “no-food” in the park policy because so many people were feeding the animals – especially the Capuchin monkeys. The monkeys became quite aggressive – stealing people’s backpacks and getting the food out of them. Now you go through security and your bags are searched. Even though there were several signs prior to the entrance, we watched as several people seemed surprised they were not allowed to take things in!Because we arrived early, we took one of the trails out to the beach. It was beautiful! We spotted a couple of the red land crabs on our way.
We followed the trail along the beach before heading back to meet our guide.
We were so glad we hired a guide because there is no way we would have seen 99% of the things in the park without having a guide. Our guide, Max, was amazing and had a great sense of humor! He told us all about the different species of animals and flora and fauna.
His 20 years of experience certainly was a bonus for us. He could see things in the trees when all we could see was the tree! He’d spy something, set up his spotting scope and have us look. He also took our phones and took pictures for us through the scope.
Near a small stream he spotted the Jesus Christ Lizard. It has the ability to quickly dart across the water – well, not just across it, but on top of it! The fringed skin on its feet unfolds in the water, expanding surface area so it appears to “walk on water” like Jesus.Helmeted Basilisks are sit-and-wait predators; they remain motionless on small vertical trunks and branches with their head pointed upward, often for hours at a time, capturing prey infrequently. They feed on slow-moving arthropods, particularly caterpillars and beetle larvae. They can grow to about 12” long but half of that is their tail.
The red-eye tree frog we saw was actually sleeping in the leaf but when it is awake the frog’s eyes are a startling bright red color!. Being green helps it blend in with tree leaves.
When full grown, the smoky jungle frog is about 7” long!
This has to be one of the most beautiful spiders I have ever seen – and I am NOT a fan of spiders. The Golden Silk Orb weavers are beneficial to have around as they consume pests like mosquitoes and beetles. It’s amazing that it weaves a web six times the tensile strength of steel, and is used in creating bulletproof clothing for police!
There are so many Capuchin monkeys in the park it was fun to see. Groups of monkeys are called troops, but in Manuel Antonio they call them the “Mafia!” Max told us they seem to work in little gangs – a few come close to you and people set their things down to take pictures while a few more swoop in behind and grab your things!
He took a video for us of some grooming each other.
The masked tree frog’s name comes from the black patch that starts at the tip of the snout and continues through the eye and the eardrum, along the frog's face. The mask helps the frog's camouflage by hiding the shape of the eye, which is what many predators will use to detect their prey. They can change their body color from light tan to olive green. Their call is a very loud "wrauk!" You would never think this is a “violet” crown wood nymph hummingbird, but the female’s color is dull compared to the male – like most bird species. Her nest was so tiny and well hidden with the leaves intertwined for camouflage.
We saw three or four different sloths along our tour, both two-toed and three-toed. The Hoffman’s Two-toed Sloth is nocturnal and much more difficult to find. If you do find them during the day, they’ll probably be napping.
Sloths have the slowest digestion system of any mammal. It can take them two weeks to fully digest a meal! In an effort to conserve energy, sloths can spend up to 20 hours a day sleeping.
They are completely arboreal which means that they eat, sleep, and even give birth, hanging from tree limbs. They only come down to the ground once every 7-10 days to defecate. The gestation period for sloths is 11 months, then they carry the baby for 8 months. Unlike marsupials, they do not have a pouch, so if a baby falls off the mom, she does NOT climb down the tree to get it, so the one we saw at the beach in Uvita was probably abandoned. Max told us they have a great conservation program in Costa Rica so when the police called for help, the baby would be picked up and taken to a sanctuary.
The most common three-toed sloth is the Brown-throated sloth. They are a bit smaller in size than Hoffman’s sloth and they are slightly more active. The major difference between the two-toed and three-toed sloths in Costa Rica are number of toes (fingers) and coloring.
The Hoffman’s two-fingered sloths have a coat of long, coarse fur which ranges in color from dark brown to pale yellow with much lighter yellow-white fur covering the head. Brown-throated sloths have a grayish-brown fur covering their body with darker brown patches of fur on the throat, the sides of the face, and the forehead. Both species of sloth, however, have a very unusual symbiotic relationship with algae. They have specialized hair that encourages algae growth, this gives them a greenish tinge and helps with camouflage up in the treetops.
This one is a three-toed sloth and he was really moving around – for a sloth! You are seeing his back with his face at the bottom.After our tour we walked back down the hill to Dos Pinos, the restaurant where we parked our car to have lunch. DELICIOUS!
It was great to sit down and relax, too, before heading off to Jaco for our next stay. We even spotted a little woodpecker in the tree next to the restaurant.
We arrived at our apartment at Bahia Encantada. It is on the third floor – no elevator – but still quite lovely. After settling in, we relaxed on one of our patios to watch the sunset. Pura Vida!
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