Wednesday, December13, 2006 Quepos, Costa Rica

We were up early this morning for our trip ashore to hike through the Manuel Antonio National Park. The tenders took us into the dock just outside of the town of Quepos where vans picked us up to take us about 20 minutes to the park. Quepos is a town of about 12,000 people and thrives on tourism: Sports fishing and eco-tourism. Early on it gained its fortunes as the shipping port for banana plantations. But a blight ended that. It was also damaged several years ago by an earthquake.

The town is below sea level and so dividing the town from the beach is a dike to keep the water out of town during high tide. Our guide pointed out the typical Costa Rican town layout: a Catholic church, near a public elementary school, near a soccer field, near a bar! He said if you go into almost any town in Costa Rica, you will find 4 corners with those 4 elements.


Toucan (small variety: double click on the photo to see it larger!)

The town next door (also called Manuel Antonio) has 100 hotels! Most perched on the ridges overlooking the ocean. We arrive just outside the park at the first of 3 beautiful beaches with the requisite food stands and souvenir huts. We purchase water and enter the park with our guide, Mauricio. He told us that Manuel Antonio is the smallest of the many National Parks with only 1700 acres. In order to get to the park, we had to wade across the mouth of the Rio Camerona and actually walk across some little boats as the tide was up and the water was chest deep!

The park is a jungle right on the ocean. The numbers of visitors are strictly managed so as to keep it from being crowded and disturbed. The hike is mostly pretty easy along well-established paths through the jungle and along two coasts of a peninsula. Beach two was less crowded (since admission is charged) but beach three was magnificent~ that is where we stopped for a swim. Neither Jack nor I came prepared with bathing suits or towels. So I took off my jeans and had a very long shirt I had bought at the zipline park and swam in the shirt and underwear….it was so hot that I needed the relief.

The water had to have been 80 degrees, mild surf and simply heavenly setting. The beach had white sands and beautiful rugged rocks and tropical foliage surrounding it.



Crab-Eating Raccoon on 3rd Beach
Now to the flora and fauna and wild creatures: we did see beautiful trees and flowers and deep jungle. We were always astounded when our guide found the animals and birds in the thick jungle. He said “that’s what I do!” And it occurred to me that as professionals in the behavioral sciences we see through the “thickets” of human quagmires in much the same way. We saw 2 and 3-toed sloths, bright green llizards, black iquanas (although they were striped) and beige ones, yellow crested night herons, and very small (mosquito-eating) bats. Mauricio told us that there are 109 varieties of bats in Costa Rica.
While we heard the howler monkeys, we didn’t see many of them: only one mother and baby sleeping in the trees. We also saw a small toucan and several other interesting birds.



Jack had begun to get a cold, so at the end of our hike, he took the van back to the ship and I explored Quepos. While I understood that Costa Rica is not a haven for great artists or crafts, I still continued my quest. I explored several art galleries that have many primitive attempts to capture the colorful birds on canvas or the villages. But I can’t say that I found any artwork worth buying. I wandered back off the main street and explored the streets that the residents would use-with the bus station, auto supply stores, supermarkets and variety stores. On the way out I stopped in several souvenir shops and did find appealing wood work-e.g. bowls, etc. I bought some Costa Rican coffee beans at the supermarket-but that was about it!

I took a very long walk to get back to the pier-along the ocean front dike, along side construction of more water front protection, industrial buildings and then huts and houses. As I approached the pier, I saw some old rusted equipment that had plants growing around the bottom and an iguana sun bathing on the top.

Finally, a mile or two outside of town, I got to the pier and took the tender back to the ship: a happy sight as my feet were pretty tender after about 6-7 hours of walking!

After a lovely nap of several hours, we joined the other travelers on board for some Costa Rican Folklorico—dancing and music. That was great fun. Our on-deck bar b que was forced indoors, however by a torrential rainstorm. At least it didn’t interfere with the hike!


We pulled up anchor close to midnight to head further south to Drake Bay. By that time, Jack and I were fast asleep…the boat simply rocks us to sleep.