During the night National Geographic Sea Lion navigated to our first destination of this week, the famous Manuel Antonio National Park, located in the middle of the Pacific coast of Costa Rica in Central America. Costa Rica is one of the oldest democracies in Latin American, a well-known country worldwide because of its stability, peacefulness, care for the environment and all of its national parks. So, today will be a good example to begin with, during our visit to Costa Rica, by seeing the smallest of the national parks in the country, but one of its jewels.
At sunrise we found ourselves already anchored at Manuel Antonio, enjoying a magnificent sunrise. An incredibly scenic landscape unveiled to us as the sun slowly rose into the sky.
Right after breakfast we proceeded to a gorgeous empty beach inside the park, and started getting ready for our walks. Our guests had the opportunity to choose between a longer, hillier hike through to Cathedral Point, and the flatter, more leisurely walk called Sloth Valley trail. Those going through Cathedral Point climbed to the top and around a hill that used to be an island and in recent times (last few hundred years) got connected to the mainland by a sandy bridge created by ocean currents. Those on the Sloth Valley trail got to walk along the bridge itself that has been created by the ocean.
Manuel Antonio is truly scenic and beautiful, with its rocky cliffs and islets, extensive whitish sandy beaches and dense green vegetation practically touching the ocean’s edge. This is the place to go if you want to easily see the otherwise elusive monkeys and sloths, some of the animals that the tropical rain forest is so well known for, and all framed by the beautiful scenery.
Today was no exception; pretty much all of our guests had a good opportunity to see two interesting and totally different extremes of lifestyles in the rain forests of the new world; both great examples of perfect adaptations to the same habitat, but different use of resources. On one side, the slow-moving, lethargic and camouflaged sloths feeding on leaves and on the other side the hyperactive and very intelligent white-faced capuchin monkeys feeding on anything they can get their little hands on.
Today was really great beginning for a great trip this week!
