Last stop in Costa Rica: Manual Antonio

A few weeks later, I'm finally wrapping up our last stop in Costa Rica - Manuel Antonio.  It was a national park on the Pacific side of the country with beautiful beaches and lots of monkeys and wildlife.  

First, we had to get there.  We knew it was going to be a 5-hour drive.  We didn't expect to get a little lost in the mountains of Costa Rica, out of range of cell phone signals and therefore completely in the hands of whoever we saw on the side of the road (and thankful for Cas' Spanish).  Here was our view which made being lost a little bit nicer - 

Once we got back on track, we made it to our amazing condo in time to hit the beach for an hour or two.  On the way back from the beach, we spotted our first howler monkeys at Manuel Antonio.  After one of our best meals, Cas rushed us back home for the Rockets game of course (it was playoff time).

Our first full day in Manual Antonio had nothing but the beach and pool on the itinerary (ie Cas' ideal vacation.)  Our condos had a private little beach.  It was beautiful but pretty rocky under the waves, which I quickly found out after trying to boogie board and coming up with cut feet.  I rode one wave in to shore and called it a day.

We kayaked a bit too, but spent most of the next two days alternating between the pool and beach.  

We'd stay until sunset for these views

And the other benefit is that the monkeys were the most active at dusk.  Here's this howler monkey I watched for probably 20 minutes, until my neck grew tired of staring into the trees.  

The howler monkey and his mango snack - 

Dinner complete with seafood and pina coladas.  

Our last full day in Costa Rica started with our last formal activity - a guided tour of Manuel Antonio national park.  We visited the park with one other family, and our tour guide had a tripod-mounted binocular system so we could see all the animals in detail, like this lizard we saw just outside the park entrance -

There were tons of hummingbirds, but most to quick to catch on camera.  

In Manual Antonio, they had three types of monkeys - the howler monkeys that we had seen at our condos, and then Capuchin monkeys and squirrel monkeys.   The Capuchins were the friendliest and most intelligent.  They were accustomed to tourists posing with them -

We were able to get so close to them, it was amazing to watch them move and interact with each other.  I probably took 100 photos of these guys I was so thrilled by the experience!

   The monkeys in action -                                                                                                                  

Oh the sloths - or perezoso in Spanish (also the word for lazy, quite fitting).  After the national park tour, I saw four more sloths around our condos, but the binoculars were amazing to see their features.  

The national park was full of lizards, frogs, and I spotted my first and only gorgeous blue morpho butterfly on the trail.  The park was also full of tour guides, and they were all friendly to show off their finds, which is how our tour guide was able to show us this frog napping in a leaf -  

Squirrel monkeys would leap from tree to tree, and sometimes took a rest for a photo opp -  

The beach at Manuel Antonio national park was gorgeous!

 Last wildlife shot, always thinking of Collin when we saw the lizards -

With the beautiful Pacific in the background -

We enjoyed one last sunset in Costa Rica and toasted a perfect 7 days with our final fruity drinks of vacation!