El Parador Manuel Antonio National Park

We left Monteverde and made our way through the mountains to the Mid Pacific coast to spend four nights at Manuel Antonio. The first part of the trip was quite slow going on gravel roads but much better once we reached the Pan American Highway part of a network of roads nearly 48,000 km in length which travels through the mainland nations of the Americas. We were gaily going along when all of a sudden out of the side of the road a policeman beckoned us over. The speed limit is quite low in Co...

Manuel Antonio is one of Costa Rica's smallest parks. The park was only established in 1972 and is only 683 hectares in area. It was just a ten minute journey in the car from our hotel. We found a parking space outside a hotel and paid the 2000 colonas and hoped it was OK to leave it there. The park was just a short walk down a small track. We had decided not to go with a guide here but do some exploring on our own. The day was very humid and I wished I had brought one of the hotel towels to ...

We had breakfast as usual but hadn't reckoned on a thief in our midst, a female Grackle bird was flying into the restaurant and very carefully siding up to a table then stealing sachets of sugar that it was flying off with and eating.

Today we had booked a sailing trip through the hotel. It was one of the hottest and sunniest days so a trip on a boat was just what we needed. We cruised around the headland and had a chance to view the Parador hotel from the sea and look at its amazing l...

Another fabulous sunny day and another boat trip. This time we wanted to try our hand at onshore fishing as we had heard that it was great fun. We sailed out of Quepos again from the old marina. They are currently building a brand new marina but we were told a lot of the boats aren't sure they will be able to afford the fees. Our boat was the called the ’Little Yanet’ and I was relieved when I managed to leap onto her without toppling into the sea. We sped out to around the island...

First Night: Arrived late at night in San Jose. Stayed at the Hotel Alta about 20 minutes from San Jose in Escazu/Santa Ana area. Beautiful hotel, we wont be here for long. Getting picked up at 5:45 for the transfer to catch the boat to Tortuguero. Hotel is beautiful. My first cultural experience in Costa Rica: Watching the Simpsons in Spanish. My parents are hungry, so we take a cab ride to the closest town that still has a restaurant open at 10 at night. The restaurant is in a strip mall. I...