Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica
“Good morning, dear guests and welcome to Manuel Antonio National Park” sounds the smooth voice from our Expedition Leader, and as we pick through the window a lush green forest framed the gray-white sandy beach and the deep turquoise sea water splashes onto the shore.
Manuel Antonio found himself on the central area of Costa Rica’s pacific shore line on one of the first volcanic islands that emerged from the collision between the Coco’s and the Caribbean plates around 50 million years ago. It is one of the smallest protected areas from the country, nonetheless is the park where finding monkeys, sloth, raccoons and more wildlife is the easiest, and for that reason is one of the most visited parks in Costa Rica.
My group decided to walk the well named Sloth Valley; our first encounters with wildlife was a gray-necked wood rail, a riverside wren, a couple of large Jesus Christ Basilisk, spiny-tailed Iguanas and as we were entering the sloth territory one of them moved a bit, just enough for us to find it through a bunch of leaves. After the first, we count five more and each one was getting closer and closer, so much that we could see the green algae that grows on its fur. Sloth are spoiled creations of mother nature, they mate, give birth, eat on the trees but they come to the ground once a week to the bathroom, they are mammals but they don’t control their body temperature very well, so at night they almost turn down their “on” switch to “off” and its body takes the environment temperature, so as soon as the sun starts shining they have to warm up their body so they can keep eating and digesting.
After five of them my group was a “sloth spotting machine”, but suddenly our attention was dragged to the lower under story where a small eye-lash viper snake was coiled in a little twig doing what they do best, “sit and wait” for its prey to come close enough for it to feel with its thermo receptors and catch it. This kind of snake does not grow more than 40 inches and is highly arboreal, adapted to catch hummers in flight among other things, they belong to the same family as rattle snakes.
And when you think that was quite a walk, we added to the mammal list: white-faced monkeys, howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys, a crab eating raccoon and agoutis. After a nice couple of hours of walking, a well deserved swim in the warm tropical waters was what the doctor prescribed. And as the sun was coming down we took pleasure in the last minutes on this little paradise, our little paradise.
“Good morning, dear guests and welcome to Manuel Antonio National Park” sounds the smooth voice from our Expedition Leader, and as we pick through the window a lush green forest framed the gray-white sandy beach and the deep turquoise sea water splashes onto the shore.
Manuel Antonio found himself on the central area of Costa Rica’s pacific shore line on one of the first volcanic islands that emerged from the collision between the Coco’s and the Caribbean plates around 50 million years ago. It is one of the smallest protected areas from the country, nonetheless is the park where finding monkeys, sloth, raccoons and more wildlife is the easiest, and for that reason is one of the most visited parks in Costa Rica.
My group decided to walk the well named Sloth Valley; our first encounters with wildlife was a gray-necked wood rail, a riverside wren, a couple of large Jesus Christ Basilisk, spiny-tailed Iguanas and as we were entering the sloth territory one of them moved a bit, just enough for us to find it through a bunch of leaves. After the first, we count five more and each one was getting closer and closer, so much that we could see the green algae that grows on its fur. Sloth are spoiled creations of mother nature, they mate, give birth, eat on the trees but they come to the ground once a week to the bathroom, they are mammals but they don’t control their body temperature very well, so at night they almost turn down their “on” switch to “off” and its body takes the environment temperature, so as soon as the sun starts shining they have to warm up their body so they can keep eating and digesting.
After five of them my group was a “sloth spotting machine”, but suddenly our attention was dragged to the lower under story where a small eye-lash viper snake was coiled in a little twig doing what they do best, “sit and wait” for its prey to come close enough for it to feel with its thermo receptors and catch it. This kind of snake does not grow more than 40 inches and is highly arboreal, adapted to catch hummers in flight among other things, they belong to the same family as rattle snakes.
And when you think that was quite a walk, we added to the mammal list: white-faced monkeys, howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys, a crab eating raccoon and agoutis. After a nice couple of hours of walking, a well deserved swim in the warm tropical waters was what the doctor prescribed. And as the sun was coming down we took pleasure in the last minutes on this little paradise, our little paradise.
