Costa Rica, Part Three: Manuel Antonio National Park

Manuel Antonio National Park

This part of our trip was unplanned and something that we did on the fly. We did not have prior hotel reservations either. We decided we wanted to get a taste of the beaches in Costa Rica too. With all the raving reviews of Manuel Antonio National Park we came across during our research, we could not leave without seeing! The National Park is on the pacific coast of Costa Rica and was about 182 km from Bajos Del Toro, approximately 3.5 hours drive. We hired a taxi to take us to the park and the driver was a very chatty in a non intrusive way kinda guy. He informed us about the different kinds of tourist he comes across on a daily basis and had funny anecdotes to relate about people from different countries. He sounded very happy and content with life in general and was a perfect example for the high happiness index in Costa Rica. Having a local drive us around had an added bonus, he knew the best place to stop by for lunch. The restaurant was close to the Tarcoles River and after lunch we headed out to walk across the bridge over the river and were greeted by a number of crocodiles swimming or sunbathing. Needless to say the kids were excited to see the critters, yikes! 

We got off at Quepos, a small town in Puntarenas province and checked ourselves into a hotel, whose name I unfortunately cannot recollect now. The hotel room was very basic and came with a small kitchenette. The hotel itself was on a mountain and offered amazing views of the Pacific ocean from our room and the restaurant. The restaurant served very yummy Mexican food but by now we were growing tired of eating outside. I packed rice, a rice cooker and some ready to eat Indian curries and later in the day we made full use of the kitchen in our room. 

The view from our hotel room in Quepos.

The view from the restaurant. 

At around 4 in the evening, we hired a cab to get a quick peek at the park and make the best use of the little time we were there but the park was closed for the day. We decided to hang out on the beach outside the park. We stayed there until sunset to soak in the beauty of the ocean, the sand, and the setting sun!

Beach outside Manuel Antonio National Park

The weather was still warm and it drizzled a bit but we found ourselves a cosy spot under a tent and let the kids play at the beach. While we had some quiet, relaxing, family time; our stay was coming to an end. We had our flight back to New Jersey, back to the reality of cold, freezing weather, the next day. We felt very grateful for being able to have an escape from it all.

We woke up around 6 am the next day and headed straight to the park. We were amongst the first few visitors. Having rented snorkeling gear, we hiked towards the beach. It was quite some walking until we got a view of the water after which we had this unbelievably stunning beach all to ourselves! We took turns to go snorkel and the water was surprisingly warm and not many fish to spot but it was also very calm and meditative to float in the water and be in that moment.

Later, it got bright, sunny and crowded and we hurried to hike back to our hotel. On our way back we spotted a lot of visitors looking at something up above in the trees.... it was a Sloth! they are usually very shy and very rare to spot. 

We got back to the hotel and finished packing and got a family picture before heading off to San Jose in a hired taxi. It was around 56 km to San Jose and took us about 2 hours to get there. We did some window shopping at Juan Santamaria International airport and bought a coffee table book about Costa Rica and a small crocodile soft toy to remind Sriman of the crocodiles we spotted on our trip, as souvenirs. Every once in a while we flip through the book, looking through the gorgeous pictures, promising ourselves to go visit this haven again soon! Until then pura vida Costa Rica!!!

Also read:
Part One and Part Two of our trip to Costa Rica.
Costa Rica with Kids