Treking Thru the Rainforest

Today we went into Manuel Antonio National Park, which is a tropicL rainforest. We lucked out this morning w/ blue skies and sun. By 1pm the rain rolled in just as some of us got back. Before we got to the park and had barely left the hotel, we were off the bus looking at a 3-toed sloth in the trees.

At the park we went on a short, but long, walk w/ our guide and naturalist pointing out wildlife in the trees we would have easily missed. The was a bat that could only be seen through a scope. The naturalist kept looking for tree frogs but we never did find one. There were just so many different trees and plants, it was beautiful. We were a large group which was tough when everyone was trying to see thru the scope. At the end of the walk we were at Playa Manuel Antonio which had beautiful ocean views. A few stayed on the beach but most of split into 2 smaller groups to hike into Punta Catedral. I figured this should be a nice walk around the peninsula like the first walk but I was wrong. It ended up being a very strenuous hike up and down and up and down steep slopes. Some of the steps were so high that my legs almost couldn't reach that far.

As strenuous as the hike was, I'm so glad I did it. We saw a two-toed sloth, a helmet head iguana, and lots of monkeys. The monkeys were so interested in whether we had food or not that they were coming right up to us. One monkey held onto my shoe for a bit while it surveyed the scene. The only problem with the hike was that the humidity was so high that iwas was sweating buckets of water w/o even moving, so that I was poison tons of water and obviously not drinkng enough. I started to feel queasy and chilled which meant that I was getting dehydrated. Luckily there were guys selling coconuts at the end b/c Vickie water is great for electrolyte replenishment.

I had the option to stay at the beach after lunch but figured it made more sense to head back to the room and replenish. We had some afternoon storms before I wentto the pool to hamg out w/ folks and throw a football around.

For dinner we all went to El Avion, a restaurant on the cliffs that has a former Nicaraguan airplane bomber in the restUrant. We are talking a full size real bomber that now has a bar inside it while folks eat upstairs. It was a neat place and the food was good.





White-throated capuchin aka Whiteface monkey
Helmet head iguana