Manuel Antonio National Park

We had the entire morning to ourselves; to just relax and take it easy, the first of this kind on our trip so far! A leisurely breakfast was followed by fun in the pool and then we headed into town again to grab lunch before starting our Manuel Antonio National park guided tour with Iguana tours. Elgran Escape, although a sea-food restaurant had plenty of vegetarian choices on its menu. Although expensive, the setting was beautiful and the veggie fajitas and avocado egg rolls were mouth-watering and succulent! We could barely u understand Jose's jumbled up narration in the park; besides the heat-humidity combo had dulled our senses further! The smallest and the most frequented national park in the country was packed with locals and visitors; Christmas break being one of the busiest seasons. Our wildlife encounter experience reached its zenith at the MA park on sighting a sloth an arm's length away descending from the top of a tall tree, traversing a cable to go to the tree across the road and in doing so, tripping and falling and climbing back up! The sloth sighting was no less than a celebrity sighting with gazillion camera clicks, gasps of excitement from spellbound spectators! We were definitely in for a treat; this had to be an important highlight of our Costa Rica trip! The white sand beach was spectacular and unique with howler monkeys and raccoons being regular visitors. The 30 minutes beach fun ended with a sudden heavy downpour that had us all drenched as we had to walk what seemed to be almost another 30 minutes to get out of the park to the bus. Adya and I stopped at the "Maxipali" supermarket to pick up some grocery for our Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich dinner at the villa that night. All of us were game for a chill evening "home" and could not have asked for a better comfort food dinner!

3-TOED SLOTH GOING FROM A TREE TO ANOTHER IN MANUEL ANTONIO NATIONAL PARK

TREADING THE MA PARK ON A HOT AFTERNOON

THIS BEAUTIFUL BEACH WAS A PERFECT RESPITE!