Costa Rica’s best nature: Manuel Antonio and Corcovado National Parks
Sloths, deer, iguanas, monkeys and much more!
Manuel Antonio’s national park features in Lonely Planet’s top 6 recommendations of the Central American isthmus. And rightly so. ‘Stunning beaches and bountiful wildlife’ aptly describes this place. Here, we saw monkeys, macaws, deer, sloths and iguanas all within the ~20 sq km area which the park offers. The views to Manuel Antonio’s nearby islands were also gorgeous. You can see these in the pictures below. Pura vida. The beaches as well were stunning. Being part of a national park, the coastline is also carefully manicured by a team of park rangers. This is helped by the fact that you’re not allowed to bring in any food in order to protect the wildlife. This therefore makes the waste management considerably easier. Unlike a lot of the beaches in Central America, the ones here made for a pleasant change as they weren’t filled with drug dealers, stray dogs and litter. Interestingly, the national park closes at 4pm and its beaches shut at 3pm, meaning everyone is cleared out of the national park before the sun starts to set — presumably so people don’t camp and hide out there overnight.
During our time in Costa Rica, we only went out for one dinner out and that was during our time in La Fortuna (as pictured in the previous blog). The rest of the time, we cooked in the hostels and guesthouses we stayed in. This was simply due to the cost of eating out in Costa Rica. In the rest of Central America that we visited, the prices to eat out were a lot more reasonable. We had a variation of meals, including: tuna sweetcorn pasta, rice with a tomato vegetable sauce and a selection of omelettes. We once treated ourselves to some sausages and we had once some very average frozen fish, like the bags of ‘seafood’ you’d buy to make a fish pie from Iceland. We enjoyed cooking in our hostel named Planet B during our time in Manuel Antonio. Due to the quite dramatic wet weather there, we spent a lot of our time in Planet B blogging, doing work outs and enjoying the free art classes on offer. This experience provided a brief insight of what retired life in a care home was like. Three nights there, one day trip out to the sights of the national park and the rest of the time, spending your allotted allowance on food and coffee to survive in what is a very expensive but comfortable environment. Pura Vida? As a result, the short time here in the context of a trip of a lifetime was enough!
We then moved south, further down the Pacific coast of Costa Rica to Corcovado National Park, which hosts 2.3% of the world’s biodiversity. It’s simply incredible that one place can host such a large abundance of the globe’s species and plantlife. Indeed, this again sadly came at a price tag. Another issue with our destination was that it didn’t have a cash point. As a result, we had to take out a sizable amount of cash between us in Quepos, near Manuel Antonio. Additionally, with only one working international bank card between us we were also limited by the £200 withdrawal amount per day. As such, we had to resort to our British bank cards, which incurred international transaction fees. What a hard life we lead. The alternative was paying 13% on the tours and accomodation by card or PayPal, which then to an even greater extent, would add up quite quickly. For example, a boat trip tour to Corcovado national park from Drake Bay, where we were staying, cost in the region of £100 per person. Being on a budget, this meant our four nights in Drake Bay were pretty quiet!
To access this expensive and remote region of Central America, you had to take a coach down to Sierpe, which is the nearest town to Corcovado that you can access by car. To finish the trip to Drake Bay, you have to take a boat. Indeed, there is no pier or jetty at Drake Bay. As a result, this involved a water landing into the Pacific Ocean. We met our Filipino friend Q, alliteratively, in Quepos and we got to know him over a beer in Sierpe. Q is a teacher and was full of good ideas, including, for instance, wearing water shoes instead of the chunky walking boots that I had opted for. He would then lend me his waterproof 10L bag for my hiking boots as I changed into my more water friendly sliders. What a legend. Once we arrived on the shores of Drake Bay, we wandered up to our hostel, Martina’s, and booked the expensive tours we had prepared ourselves for.
I would say that the cost of the hike in Corcovado National Park was worth the money. We saw humpback whales in the ocean on entry into the park which was a stellar start. 10/10. We later saw all four species of monkey the park has to offer: howler, white faced, squirrel and spider. 8/10. We would then see a pack of racoons. 4/10. Later, we trekked to a more secluded part of the national park to see a tapir and its baby. 9/10. There were also a plethora of other wildlife guided tours taking place at the same time. One group said they saw a puma, which we would then chase to find but to no avail. 3/10. The puma hunt was quite fun, which provided a silver lining to this experience despite not actually seeing it. After an early start at ~5am and 22,000 steps later, we headed back to the hostel and took some well deserved rest. That night, Q and I shared some beers in Drake Bay’s local bar. They had their very own ‘Drake Bay’ IPA, which although named after the area, was actually produced in Costa Rica’s capital San Jose. We also tried an Irish Red Ale by the same brewer, which was simply delicious. Away from my boyfriend duties for a couple of hours, I then brought one back for Hannah on her request.
Having felt like we’d just taken a loan out to come to Corcovado National Park and then also to enjoy it, the next three days were relatively quiet and a lot cheaper. This included an independent tour around the local area to Drake Bay’s beach, our very own ‘birdlife tour’ and a 6 hour round hike to Rio Claro. On these tours we saw toucans, colourful macaws and snakes which was exciting! It was also nice to have some downtime in Corcovado as on the 6th August my Dad turned 70. As a result, this gave us some flexibility to speak to my family who were celebrating this occasion back in London. It was extra special to be in the same place we had visited 7 years earlier as a family and to share some cheap red wine and beers with them, albeit virtually over a Whatsapp video call. A slice from home away from home. As we departed back towards San Jose for our connecting flight to Quito, Ecuador, we were lucky enough to see two dolphins from our boat. This coupled with all of these experiences we’d had made me feel incredibly lucky to come to this part of the world and experience it all over again.
We then took a stressful-ish journey back to the capital city of San Jose. After a 6am start at Martina’s, we took the boat back to Sierre. A collectivo car then took us to Palmar Norte, where we would wait for a bus for ~an hour to San Jose. On arrival there, we were told there were no seated tickets until 1pm. It was now around 9am. A group of 5 of us from Martina’s hostel decided to brave this, with most of us getting seats for the 5 hour journey fortunately. We also received 1000 colones ($1.50) off the quoted price for ‘standing’ tickets. After arriving in the not-so-highly-spoken of capital of San Jose, we took an uber straight from the bus station to our guesthouse in Alujera. In the same vein as San Jose, this place also had a ‘don’t go out’ at night reputation, due to criminal gangs operating in the area.
Refreshed from 10 hours sleep, the next day we went to visit the Doka coffee plantation. Here, we met a lovely South Korean woman who was also on the plantation tour. After tasting the plantation’s local variations of coffee, she discussed how much pleasure she had in meeting so many Europeans during her time in Central America. She spoke of how in South Korea, there was so much pressure to reach the next level of society, where as a woman at 30 you need to be married, at 35 you need to have kids and at 40 to then have a rejuvenated career. It was really interesting hearing this perspective from an Asian traveller where in life, society wants you to achieve a series of goals by a series of deadlines. She similarly said the maximum an employee would receive for their holiday was 7–10 days away from the office at any one time. This has led to a massive generational burn out, where millennial employees in South Korea simply have quit their jobs because this is such an unsustainable model. The culture of working hard which she spoke of had damaged so many young people, not giving them enough flexibility to enjoy their own interests and to recuperate properly. As we ended our time in Central America, this epistemological moment allowed me to reflect on the journey we had made so far over the last two months in addition to the 18 months of planning it had previously taken. Onwards to our next stop, Quito, Ecuador in South America!
