MANUEL ANTONIO
Days 14-16
The Pacific Coastal town and resort of Manuel Antonio is about a four hour drive from San Jose on decent roads surrounded by decent drivers and two sizes of vehicles. Size ONE - ordinary cars, mostly clean sorted little saloons and mid range 4WD. Size TWO - f'ing enormous monster trucks with shagging great bull bumpers, vast exhausts, great big shades over the windows which made them look almost human, and a lot like a very angry big bloke bearing down on you. But driven by polite pussies, thank goodness.
There is also a lot on the web about potholes on Costa Rican , but trust me, the people who moaned about potholes really should try Jamaica, call that a pothole? THIS is a pothole! As any true Jamaican would say. True, the roads did have some potholes, and up in the mountains on un-mettled roads it was a bit slow going. But going slowly just meant you saw more of the amazing scenery.
Oh, and the vultures, bloody vultures everywhere you look, nary a patch of blue sky without added vulture. Everywhere you look you can see them, which either means there are literally thousands of vultures in CR, or, more worrying, there are just 10-20 vultures in CR and they are all swirling round us. I rather hope it's the former not the latter! Oh, and the crocodiles, big ugly buggers in the rivers. Nothing to be scared of then.
Manuel Antonio is the place for big national parks, lovely beaches and wildlife, and so once we had checked into the very expensive Jungle Vista ($225 a night!!) we set out to spot wild animals. True to its name our hotel and our room really did have a jungle view, as in we could touch the jungle, it was that close.
So we booked ourselves onto a National Park tour the following day. Picked up by bus off we set into the rain forest with our super knowledgeable guide Michelle (ex Miss Quepos I'll have you know) and two great walking companions from LA, Bob and Susan. Most importantly we saw what Sara wanted to see - a Three Toed Tree Sloth. And a frog, and a spider, and a lizard.
Above is the touchable jungle at the Jungle View and on the right is the really lovely room with its own kitchen and big balcony, well worth the money.
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Below is our first Tree Sloth, and below that you can see Sara actually looking up at it through our lovely Michelles telescope (ex Miss Quebos you know, did I already tell you that?). Above Sara's head are our tour buddies and below is an advert for the park.
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In the photo above Sara is espying our sloth, through the naked eye it looks a bit like a greyish blur 1,000 feet up, motionless, hidden by leaves. No normal human would ever spot it - but Michelle did. Did I mention she was, no, never mind.
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After our visit to the National Park and our sloth hunting success, not that we 'hunted' them I assure you, much frowned upon, we repaired to our hotel, and blow me down!!!
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It cost us $100 to see a sloth up a tree that was only mildly visible through Michelle's telescope (did I say...) and knock me down with a feather, there was one in the tree outside our balcony. Virtually waving to us! Although a sloth wave takes several hours, you get my drift. If you look above Sara's head in the photo, at the very top of the tree is a grey blob - sloth! Job done. Sloths well and truly ticked off the to-do list. Toucans next. Turtles were on the list but they are now extinct, taste too good in soup apparently. Only joking, wrong time of year. So Toucans watch out, Sara is about.
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Monkeys were covered early in the morning by their howling, as in Howler Monkeys doing what comes naturally, plus nicking our grub at breakfast. This place is a zoo!!
It is also a great place for pristine beaches and amazing sunsets, while enjoying top quality sushi. Top quality!
The next day we drove to the Nauyaca Falls and were about to walk the 2.5k down to them when we ran into good old Susan and Bob again who both said in a loud voice - "DON'T". Thank goodness we followed their advice and took the jeep down. Lovely falls, bloody steep approach road, almost vertical. But yet more stunning scenery.
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So after that message from our sponsor it is onward and upwards, literally, 5,000 feet upwards to......
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In both countries so far there has been no decent TV, in Costa Rica everything is in Spanish, so it has been a massive boon to be able to watch live British television. This is normally impossible as BBC/ITV etc see your IP address is outside the UK and they block you. Same with Netflix and Amazon. Unless that is you use a VPN. And the best ones really do work. NORD VPN, about £60 for two years subscription, You get what you pay for and boy is it worth it to see Sara engrossed in daft northerners arguing in Coronation Street. She loves it.