Costa Rica - Day 5 - Manuel Park

Got up at 5:30 am to get ready so we could go early to the park.  We were all ready and at breakfast by 7 am. We made some rudimentary sandwiches to take for lunch as we knew there would not be any eating place there.  I knew they would become soggy but we had no choice.  

Took the bus again to the last stop, as that is the shorter route to the park, at about 8 am. The line to get into the park was sooo long! I was under the impression that they allow only a certain number of people in the park, but that is not true. We got the tickets from the bank, the main gate does not sell tickets. It took us about one hour to get in the park.

At the security gate the guards checked our bags. They saw the tomatoes separately and told us to put them in the sandwiches, but that would make the sandwiches so soggy. We did not have much choice. But then they also did not check the bags again. So we could have skipped it. 

The walk inside was all boardwalk. The road parallel to the boardwalk was for maintenance vehicles and anyone who wanted to go on it. Initially we did not see much wildlife, just a lot of trees and bushes. Slowly we started seeing crabs, sloth, iguanas and then came the spider monkey, mafia monkey (steals food!) and many lizards. Sadly we did not see any birds.  The walk was very pretty.

We came to the beach. It was very pretty. Many people come only for the beach. There is showering area also, so convenient to come to the beach. This would have been a better beach to spend time on. There were many mafia monkeys around here. They are kind of cute but really naughty.

We then went to the Watchtower trail. It was a killer trail! Too many steps up. I thought we would never come down. The views were okay on the way but the up and down was just a bit much after doing the volcano hike a day ago. 

We had lunch after the trail ended at the beach. It was a nice beach. The sandwiches were soggy and horrible but it was food. We walked past the mafia monkey and the beach. We took some additional side trails on the way back. We were all hot and sweaty but it was an enjoyable day. We were out by 3:15pm. Bhaiya and all decided for an afternoon catamaran cruise for tomorrow. There was going to be dinner, snorkeling etc in the cruise.

We got back to the hotel by 5 pm. Showered, made some tea , rested while everyone else showered. Went to dinner at the Fallafel place today. It was really good fallafel dinner. Papa called during that time as I had called him earlier from the beach to share the view.  At this time the connection again was poor so we called him when we got back to the hotel.

Had some good desert that Bhaiya had bought at Arenal. Really tasty. Another great day with so much new to see and enjoy.