This morning we woke up early to beat the crowds to Costa Rica’s most popular (and smallest) national park. The park opens at 7am and closes at 4pm, and we highly recommend getting there at or near opening time. There is one main trail with auxiliary trails that branch off…by 8am the tour busses begin rolling in and dozens of people are offloaded onto the main trail in large groups. SInce COVID, Manuel Antonio is one of the national parks that require advance online reservations for park entry…they no longer sell tickets in person, but do have a desktop computer available to buy onsite if you did not advance. It’s about $16pp.
This is one of the few parks we planned on hiring a guide. It’s a small park, but there are so many different species of animals that a trained/certified guide and a spotting scope can capture. Let’s take a moment to clarify the different between “guide” and “tour” and the potential need to book in advance. If you have a car, you really only need a “guide” and there’s no need for advance booking…just look for one of the many guides outside the park entrance with their spotting scope in hand and ask to see their ICT certification badge, which is from the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo in Costa Rica (usually wearing it around their neck indicating that they are licensed tourism guides in Costa Rica).
Licensed guides usually charge around $20USD per person, but prices are negotiable. Many of the local guides know each other from working here on a daily basis, and even help each other spot animals throughout the park. Daniel (our guide) was incredibly knowledgeable about the local flora and fauna, but also about the history of the area and the park itself.
If you don’t have a car, a tour booked in advance might be the option for you. We can’t really speak to this, as we did not do a tour, but we can say the tours provide transportation and a guide (some may even provide lunch). We can say the tour groups were quite large and less tailored to a personal experience, so we recommend the former.
Daniel told us that no one truly knows where the name “Manuel Antonio” came from, or why the park is named this, but there is much speculation. He mentioned that much of the forest is secondary forest, meaning that it has regrown after human deforestation. In this case, Chiquita Brands International directly caused the primary forest destruction. Fortunately, Costa Rica has since protected much of their lands (even secondary forests) from these lucrative and destructive international companies.
Daniel immediately spotted some wildlife that we would’ve walked right past if not for our guide! He pointed out insects and reptiles that help keep the mosquito population away, and also informed us that humans rarely get bit while walking around in the park because of these predators.
We’ve wanted to see native tree frogs and dart frogs, but they are usually only active at night. Thanks to our guide, we saw the famous red-eyed frog, which is one of the most photographed frogs in the world! It was sleeping so we couldn’t see its red eyes, but how cool?! Look at that camouflage! We also saw an active gladiator frog, which Daniel said was incredible rare to see in the daytime!
Further down the main trail, we saw a bigger tour group looking up in the trees. This could only mean two things, sloths or monkeys! It ended up being a mama and baby 2-toed sloth sleeping in the trees. They were pretty high up, but thanks to our guide’s spotting scope, it felt like they we right there (you can even take pretty sharp pictures through the scope, which is great).
We were pretty lucky today, because it seemed like many of the local animals were active. A few trees down, we saw a 3-toed sloth actively eating in the trees! Daniel informed us of the few difference between 2-toed and 3-toed sloths in case you’re interested. 2-toed sloths have hair all over their bodies (including their face) and resemble Chewbacca, while the 3-toed sloths have very little hair on their face and look like they’re always smiling. Also, 2-toed sloths are omnivores (eating leaf matter and insects) and are nocturnal, while 3-toed sloths are strictly herbivores and are diurnal. Some other fun facts that we found interesting: Sloth move so slow because of their digestion process, which can take up to one month! They only come down from the trees about once per week…and it’s to poop! Also, they don’t poop near the same tree that they live in so that predators can’t easily find them (their pretty slow after all).
The next animal we spotted was a howler monkey eating in a distant tree. We’ve seen plenty of howler monkeys already, but this was a unique experience thanks in part to Daniel and his spotting scope. He spotted this young male howler from a distance and we were able to observe him eating without him seeing us…at least momentarily.
We even saw some bats hanging on nearby trees and suspended from leaves! It was so interesting to see…we usually imagine bats to be in a dark cave.
After about 3 hours of slowly moving along the main trail, we reached the dining area. This dining area is a unique feature of Manuel Antonia National Park because it is the only place where you can eat in the entire park (you cannot bring any outside food into the park…bags are checked at the entrance for this reason). White-faced capuchin monkeys have become very comfortable with and seemingly unafraid of humans…so much so that they will open your backpack and steal food out if they smell it. They’ve even become accustomed to the sound of chip bags! Unfortunately, we even bore witness to a group of mischievous white-faced monkeys stealing a family’s bag of chips on the beach as the family was in the water.
The dining area marks the end of the main trail and the beginning of others. It is also where your guided tour comes to an end. There are 4 main beaches here in Manuel Antonio National Park, with two close by and two others that require additional hiking. Daniel recommended hiking the Punta Catedral (Cathedral Point) loop, which rises and falls in elevation, and has multiple viewing points. Two of the nearby beaches, Playa Manuel Antonio and Playa Espadilla Sur, are at the base of this loop.
The Punta Catedral trail began with a steady incline in an otherwise flat park. There are three different viewpoints of the ocean and nearby islas, which gave us a nice break on such a hot day. While we were on this trail, we even bumped into a couple that was in our ziplining group all the way back in Monteverde!
The loop end as you arrive to the beautiful Playa Manuel Antonio. What a perfect way to end our adventure…beach lounging and a little snorkeling.
After cooling off, we realized how hungry we were, so we made our way back to the entrance via a mangrove trail that’s adjacent to the main trail. We were more focused on our hunger than the wildlife, but we still saw a ton of land crabs and another active 3-toed sloth! The sloth was pretty low in the tree, so we wondered if it was going down for his weekly bathroom break.
It was already the early afternoon, so rather than continue to further trails, we decided to head back to our hotel for a quick bite to eat. We ordered their version of loaded nachos and it was just what we needed!
We didn’t want to eat too much because we wanted to save some room for sunset dinner at Agua Azul. This restaurant is small, but it has amazing ocean views. It was pretty busy when we got there and as soon as one table opened up, it was filled almost immediately. We ordered drink and an appetizer and soon realized why it was so popular…everything was great! For our entrées, we got the chicken fajitas and the Costa Rican red snapper. It was one of the best dinners we’ve had here in Costa Rica, so we definitely recommend it if you’re in the Manuel Antonio area.
After filling our tanks, we hopped back in our car and made our way back to the hotel. We were exhausted when we got back to our room and almost immediately fell asleep! Tomorrow is our last day in Manuel Antonio and we plan to do a local Costa Rican cooking class…so stay tuned!
PS: Related to conservancy and deforestation, it seems like the new wave of industrial farming here in Costa Rica is related to palm oil production. We’ve seen numerous palm forest farms, which proves that consumerism continues to make conservation efforts a challenge.