The Magical Mystery Tour

Manuel Antonio Park, Costa Rica

One thing we found about living in the tropics is how wounds take a long time to heal due to the high humidity. Getting into the water regularly doesn’t help. So we decided we needed to get a slip in a marina, which would allow us to go straight from the boat to a dry dock for a while to give my toe a chance to heal.

We sailed about 30 nautical miles to Quepos from Bahia Nicoya, where there is a very fancy marina called Marina Pez Vela. (In Spanish, vela is sail, and pez is fish, so it’s Sailfish Marina), and mostly caters to sport fishing boats. It’s the only marina close to Manuel Antonio Park which we definitely wanted to tour, and they also had an urgent care center there for my toe. I got an appointment with a doctor straight away and they actually performed a little bit of surgery on my big toe. My toe nail was digging into the the wound causing it to continue to open up. It also came as no surprise that it was infected. I was feeling a lot of pain from banging it often on the boat or while walking around to different places, and I was looking forward to having it heal once and for all.

Maybe we should trade up?

It was a good decision to get a slip even though this marina was so expensive. They wanted to charge an exorbitant fee for our friends to simply tie up their dinghy for a couple of hours in our already paid for slip while we went to dinner together at one of the marina’s restaurants. Not a very open, friendly environment towards cruisers like we experienced all through Mexico. They catered mostly to the bigger, fancy power yachts or the fleet of commercial sport-fishing charter boats which took up most of the slips.

The view of the beach on our walk into town.

The town of Quepos was a short walk away. Quepos is a very modest and simple working class town with a very small grocery store. The beach on the way into town was beautiful during low tide with small lazy long waves fading into warm sandy textures and soft watery pastels. The view was so soothing to take in, next to the hot busy street that led us to the bus from Quepos to Manuel Antonio Park.

Costa Rica manages foot traffic inside its national park system by limiting the number of tours they allow per day, in order to reduce the human impact on this pristine nature preserve. When we first arrived, we didn’t have the necessary park entry reservation, so although we were very interested to go into the park, luckily we ran into someone who offered us a boat tour down a river to see the monkeys who live in the jungle near the water. In a fit of marketing genius, someone labeled this the Monkey Tour. We were super excited to see what the monkeys were up to that day, and since we were the last customers they recruited for the tour, we were able to negotiate a good price.

The tour started off slow with some lizards and bats until suddenly we saw some white-faced capuchin monkeys jumping around in the trees and calling out to each other. They were used to tour boats and the guides knew what every monkey wants. You guessed it. An entire troupe of monkeys came for their banana breakfast, and didn’t mind using your head or shoulders as their breakfast table and chair, while they focused on eating their treat.

We had such a fun time on the Monkey Tour. The guide was very knowledgeable and patient and the families and kids with us were extremely excited and fun to spend time with too. The monkeys were obviously the best part of the tour and below is a video clip so you can see the wild monkeys jumping on board.

The next day we toured Manual Antonio National Park with a guide so we were sure to see all the various species of life we could see. The park is a national treasure of Costa Rica and Costa Ricans are very proud of their country for being one of the healthiest places to live in the world. It was decided years ago that they didn’t really need to invest in an army and instead they used those resources to protect their delicate ecosystem and all the diverse species that contribute to creating such a healthy environment. It’s what makes Costa Rica so special. In fact the phrase “Pura Vida”, which is deeply rooted in Costa Rican culture, represents a positive, healthy and gracious attitude on life.

We were so happy with our tour guide who helped us to see so many animals, birds and reptiles. There are too many pictures to fit inside a single blog post. There were many monkeys living at the beach inside the park. It was one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen in Costa Rica, so who could blame them. They were so relaxed and were very happy living with their relatives next to such serene surroundings. However, the monkeys themselves weren’t always peaceful as we could often see them fighting with each other. I don’t know if they only lived at the beach, but there didn’t seem to be any predators for them to really worry about, which allows them some freedom. They also didn’t mind all the annoying humans around gazing at them, taking pictures and walking by.

At the end of the guided tour we were allowed to meander around at our own pace on the different paths that led to other parts of the park near the shoreline. The jungle was full of bird whistles and insect calls, as well as leaves rustling from the light breeze. The smells filled our nostrils with the scent of damp soil, fresh palm leaves, various tree barks, and sweet flowering plants. The humidity clung to our skin and clothes.

Our friends Kyle and Leah from Jubel

We continue to be amazed at the incredibly diverse beauty of Costa Rica. Stay tuned for more adventures down the coast into the wild jungle of Drakes Bay where we literally run into one of the most dangerous snakes in all of Central and South America.