Pura Vida in Costa Rica – Quepos & Manuel Antonio

EXPLORING COSTA RICA WITH TWO YOUNG KIDS

We had already spent time in the Costa Rican mountains… a wonderful and busy four days in the rainforest. Now we were ready for the beach!

Pura Vida in Costa Rica – La Paz & Blue Falls

Pura Vida in Costa Rica – La Fortuna Uno

Pura Vida in Costa Rica – La Fortuna Dos

After leaving La Fortuna, eventually we reached the coast, and the Pacific Ocean stretched before us. We continued our drive down to Quepos, and by the time we arrived at the Costa Verde resort, it was full on raining. Sigh. Quepos and the resorts outside of it are located up on a cliff that overlooks the ocean, and I could tell that if the weather had cooperated, the sunset would be magnificent.

Costa Verde Resort

We were only spending one night at the Costa Verda resort. We wanted a home base close to Manual Antonio National Park so we could visit easily the next day. Since we only had one night here, Scott and I splurged on a special accommodations as a surprise for the kids. After check in, the resort employee showed us to our own hotel suite inside of a real airplane! J and A were over the moon! I am so happy that we kept this surprise for them and that they were as excited about it as we hoped. They explored the entire suite and spent most of our stay hanging out in the pilot seats in the cockpit.

This place was one of the coolest places I’ve ever stayed. Well, probably THE coolest. The plane’s fuselage had been converted to a two bedroom, two bath hotel suite. We entered the plane from a door in the midsection, which opened up into a kitchenette, small dining table, and a little sitting nook with a tv. One bedroom was in the front of the place, with the cockpit actually converted to one of the bathrooms. The other bedroom was in the back of the plane, with the other bathroom in the tail. There were two large balconies off of either side of the plane, complete with patio furniture and hammocks for enjoying the view.

The rain wasn’t letting up anytime soon, and Amelia still wasn’t feeling well so we decided to order pizza for dinner. Did I mention it was Thanksgiving day? Haha, pizza for Thanksgiving. If we had all been feeling well, our plan was to eat dinner at one of the resort restaurants. They had a few options, all on the cliffside overlooking the Pacific and looked so enticing. But with the poor weather conditions, balcony dining probably wouldn’t have been ideal, and, honestly, the timing was not bad because the hotel suite was so cool, we got to maximize our time enjoying it. We ordered our pizza room service from one of the restaurants onsite, and made the best of the situation. The view of the Pacific from the covered balcony were gorgeous, and it was nice to relax in place for the evening.

Day 5

Waking up in an airplane isn’t something you get to do everyday. Mostly it’s only if you are on a red eye flight. Waking up in the Costa Verde airplane room was so cool. The sun was shining, and we could see the ocean from the cockpit. Thankfully A woke up feeling MUCH better. It always amazes me how fast kids recover from injury or illness. I guess staying in the night before was the right call. Our tour of Manual Antonio wasn’t until the late morning, so we had some time to enjoy the room and the resort.

Just as Scott and I were settling in on the balcony with steaming cups of coffee, we heard a pitter patter and then a thump thump and all of a sudden, two monkeys were bounding across the airplane roof to sit on our balcony railing! I had completely forgotten what they say about Costa Verde: “more monkeys than people”. Scott rushed inside to get the kids before the monkeys could scamper off. They were stunned! This was our first real monkey encounter of the trip. After a few minutes, it looked like our visitors were expecting something, so Scott quickly cut up an apple for us to feed them. The monkeys hungrily ate their snack, and I guess the word was out because a few MORE monkeys showed up. If I thought that the kids would be nervous to be so close to the monkeys, I shouldn’t have worried at all – J kept holding out his arm, offering the monkeys a perch!

After our apple ran out and the monkeys got more comfortable around us, Scott and I got a little nervous, so we all went inside. The monkeys must have missed us because a little later we noticed a monkey-sized handprint in the moisture on the glass door. Ha creepy. Eventually we could hear the group of monkeys making their way through the trees to some of the other resort rooms. We think they must have a regular rotation to see where breakfast is being served each day.

We spent the rest of our visit exploring the resort. There are secluded trails that take you around the resort, past some gorgeous swimming pools, an outdoor pavilion, and an adult only area directly overlooking the ocean. Besides the monkeys, we spotted some mammals called guatusas and some sun-bathing iguanas. There are also a few restaurants attached to the resort, on the cliffside with ocean views. We are bookmarking this place for a longer visit in the future! It was just a quick one night stay, but the airplane room was an absolutely memorable experience.

Manuel Antonio National Park

If we thought we had seen a lot of wildlife so far, that was nothing compared to our visit at Manuel Antonio National Park. We hired a tour guide for this park so that we could get help with wildlife spotting and also just to make the logistics of entering the park a little easier. There is one road that winds up the cliffside from Quepos to Manuel Antonio, and the parking situation outside of the park can at best be described as chaos. Off of the one road, there are make shift parking lots between and behind buildings, and by the time we got there, they all said they were full. I don’t know how anyone does it without assistance. Our guide has a deal with one of the parking lots, so they guided us into a tight spot and we had to leave our car keys since there were multiple rows of cars all parked together.

Once we got all situated, we walked through the busy area outside the park and checked in at the entrance. Our fee was already included with the guide that we hired, so he sorted out our entrance while park staff checked our backpacks. It is very strictly forbidden to bring food into the park, only water is allowed. Apparently even though feeding the animals is not allowed, the monkeys learned that visitors might still have food in their bags, and they would try to steal bags or become aggressive when searching the bags for food. No thank you! I’m glad this is not a problem anymore and will happily keep all our snacks in the car.

Manuel Antonio National Park is located on the Pacific coast, in the southwest area of Costa Rica. The park contains three main trails that wind through the tropical rainforest, and the crown jewel of the park is Playa Manuel Antonio, considered one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. The trails are mostly flat and easy to navigate, but we hired a guide because we wanted an expert to help us spot and identify the wildlife in the park. We still hadn’t had a decent sloth sighting, so we were reeeeally hoping this would be our chance.

Our guide took us down the main trail first. It was a peaceful walk in the shade, and we could already hear the sounds of animals in the area. He told us that we were in luck today because on his earlier tour, they spotted six male sloths fighting for one female. That sounded exciting! He explained that we picked a good time to visit because it was mating season, so the wildlife would be more active. Our first wildlife sighting of the hike was a large insect camouflaged in the green vegetation. While interesting, the most exciting animals were still to come. Our guide was awesome with hearing and mimicking certain bird calls. The kids tried to join in, but only our guide had the right whistle to get return chirps.

As we continued our hike, we started to hear a shrill shrieking noise. Our guide excitedly told us that we were close to the sloth group he had seen earlier. These shrieks were part of the sloth fight! This noise was absolutely NOT what you would expect to hear from a sloth. Finally we saw a group of visitors gathered in one area on the trail. This must be where the action was happening. Our guide pointed out some of the male sloths in the tree, and then we saw one that had already fallen out of the tree from earlier. Poor guy was right off the ground next to the trail, starting his slow ascent back up in the trees. He was literally RIGHT THERE next to us! We couldn’t believe it! Our guide then found the highly popular female, high in the trees above us. And he saw that she already had a baby on her back… all I can say is, yikes.

While we were mesmerized watching the sloths, all of a sudden there was a commotion in the bushes next to us, and two furry brown mammals, about the size of a raccoon, ran out of the brush, onto the trail, and seemingly directly toward our group! We all jumped back in shock and they darted away from us back into the rainforest. These animals were pizotes, and our guide explained that this was probably related to mating season competition. And this encounter has now become one of Scott’s favorite stories because when we all jumped back, he grabbed our kids to shield them while I only saved myself. I’m definitely not living down that anytime soon.

After a few more minutes in the area, we realized that two of the males were getting close to each other and the shrieking was getting more persistent. All of a sudden these males were throwing punches at each other! All while hanging onto the tree branches with the other arm. Admitting, a little slow… we are talking sloths here. Eventually one of the males lost the battle and fell to a lower branch. We learned that this was how a male would “win” the female – by being the last one in the tree.

To give a perspective on how exciting this was, there were multiple park guides stopped, enthralled by the wildlife action taking place in front of us. Our guide has been at this job for almost 20 years and said he has never seen something like this before. You could certainly feel the excitement in the air! I cannot believe how lucky we were to witness this first hand and how amazing it was to see a sloth SO CLOSE. I know that it left an impression on the kids because A reminds me ever so often that she is going to be a sloth for Halloween this year.

The trail ended at a refreshment stand before visitors can continue on to the beach. Up to this point, we hadn’t seen any monkeys. A little surprising considering the troop we already saw at the hotel this morning. Once we got close to the refreshment stand, the reason became clear – they were all hanging out around the food! The rainforest around the scattered picnic tables was full of monkeys looking for an opportunity to snag a treat. These monkeys were not messing around. We saw them successfully steal fruit a few times, and when they would get upset, they would throw down a tree branch form up in the tree. Our guide pointed out the “alpha” of the group, and you could tell he was really running the show. The phrase “Costa Rican Marfa” used to describe these monkeys seemed like a good description. It was a mixture of entertaining and a little scary haha.

Now we walked down another path that lead to the famous Playa Manuel Antonio. Our initial view did not disappoint. The beach lived up to the hype – it was gorgeous! The water was a bright turquoise, gently lapping up onto white sand, and the lush rainforest surrounding the beach made it look like a tropical paradise. The coastline curves into a half moon shape, creating a little lagoon so the water is nice and calm for swimming. Our guide ended his tour here so that we could stay and enjoy the beach. We immediately got dressed for swimming and made a beeline for the inviting blue water. The beach was busy but not too crowded, and we stored our belongings next to a piece of driftwood where we could keep an eye from the water. After some time swimming, playing in the sand, and soaking in this paradise, we reluctantly decided it was time to head back.

The park has a restroom/changing room facility at the beach, so we changed there on our way out. Looking back, it was quite a hassle to change in the facility and I wish we had figured out a different option. There was not much space, the line was long, and the floor was covered in water, making it difficult to actually get dressed in dry clothes. By the time we were ready to head out of the park, I was super grumpy. Fortunately the walk back to the car was easy, and yes, we did stop to watch the sloths some more, cheering us back up! After that we were on our way back through Quepos on to Playa Hermosa.