Holy Moly. What a few days! I’m sweating my absolute nuts off while writing this. Billie just jumped in the cold shower and I’m next. We just got back from Manuel Antonio National Park in Quepos, the most visited place in Costa Rica where we saw sloths, among other delightful creatures. In an hour, we’ll be travelling to Uvita, our next stop.

Day 4 – Travel to Quepos

We went for the 11.25 bus from the main road off Esterillos. We chose this on the basis there was also an 11.35 bus and it gave us double the chance of one turning up. At 11.50, after a good 30 minutes of waiting under the watchful eyes of two staring, unmoving iguanas, we decided we needed to go back into town to find a taxi. We picked up our bags, and, due to sods law, opted to wait for one more car to come round the corner and then we’d go. We waited for quite a while, and almost gave in… until… you guessed it… the bus turned the corner! We climbed on and we were on our way to Quepos.

Quepos is much bigger than Esterillos, with an actual bus station, many restaurants and a taxi service. It is inhabited by many thousands of Costa Ricans and tourists come by the plenty, for the most part to visit Manuel Antonio National Park, 10 mins down the road. We disembark the bus and are met with our first proper town, with traffic, honking horns and bustling townfolk to boot. It’s hot, and we’re carrying our everything. Had we known the taxi rank was opposite the bus station, we’d have saved ourselves a 25 minute walk in the blazing mid-afternoon sun up to our hostel, Villas Jacquelina.

We arrived sweatier than life itself and were grateful to be greeted with a cold coconut water and shown into our room. No AC, just a fan. It was fine… Resident doggo Leo guarded the hostel quite effectively from both intruders and guests alike, growling and barking indiscriminately at any given moment to any given person. He was a part time obstacle course to negotiate when at the hostel, but he was a warm-hearted cuddly bear really… probably…

After a shower and change, Billie collapsed into a hammock with a view without much sign of moving, so I set off on the walk back into Quepos town where I spent a few hours eating lunch, drinking beers exploring and buying some bananas. I discovered the taxi rank, which cost £2 to get back to the hostel. Never again did we traverse the hill of sweat! For dinner we finally experienced a ‘soda’ where I had ‘casado’ – translating as ‘marriage’ the traditional Costa Rican meal of rice and beans, salad, plantain and a protein, in my case fish. Billie went for some delightful cheesy quesedillas. It was a fairly uneventful day, but some much needed recuperation and enjoyable experiencing of Costa Rican life was had.

Day 5 – Damas Mangroves

Our first guided nature tour! We kicked it all off with the Damas Mangroves on a guided boat tour. We were ferried to the mangroves from our hotel at a leisurely 10am after a delicious pancake breakfast. Most of the people in the tour bus were doing the kayak version of the tour, but as photography is my one and only passion in life, we were on the boat which I deemed safer for camera equipment.

We lucked into an almost empty boat with just a lovely Swiss family of 3, our tour guide and the captain. All the other boats we saw were full, so we got a bit lucky. It was great to move around the boat with freedom to see everything up close and get the best angles for snaps. We first came across some great birds, my favourite being the Tiger Heron.

We also got our first glimpse of monkeys! These white-faced capuchin monkeys were new to us, and full of character; leaping around the branches playfully. Things got a tad less jovial as the alpha, with a henchman for backup, came to scream at us aggressively. “Sheizer!” yelled the young teenage Swiss boy. We all jumped a bit.

Billie has the best nature-watching eyes, as you will doubtless repeatedly discover throughout the blog. As we approached the area where mangrove meets sea, she saw a sea turtle briefly break the surface. It was true (not that we doubt Billie’s word *cough cough*) because the captain and tour guide saw it too and said it was the first turtle either of them had EVER seen on one of these tours. We’ll make a tour guide of her yet, folks. I, however, am destined to have someone repeatedly point and say “It’s right there, seriously – how can you not see it?” (to quote the young Swiss lad). We got back from Damas suitably natured out, and were treated to lunch by the tour company. We taxi’d back to the hostel, read books on hammocks for a few hours then headed down to the sea front for sunset, which was gorgeous as per…

We keep finding ourselves with the time being like 5.30pm and it’s dark and we don’t know what to do with ourselves. We decided cocktails were in order so went to a lovely 3rd floor bar with a view and had piña coladas. A bit peckish, we ordered some nachos which turned out to be completely enormous and we were stuffed. A couple of drinks later and our dinner plans somewhat foiled, we went back to the hostel for yet another early night, as we’d jam packed the following day with further activities!

Day 6 – The Rainmaker & Biesanz Beach

The Rainmaker is a pretty dramatic and awesome name for a private bit of rainforest some geezer a few decades ago carved a path through and built some swinging bridges in for good measure. About 45 mins north of Quepos, we grabbed a taxi who would wait for us for a couple of hours while we explored. I, trying to get the inside track as per, asked the man on the desk for all the best spots. His only advice was to walk quietly and look around – you’ll see stuff. Thanks bud. Well… See stuff we did not, at least for a good while. You’d think in your average bit of rainforest you’d have a load of birds flying around at least. It felt completely deserted, which I suppose is testament to just how big these rainforests are and how, quite reasonably, the wildlife spreads out a bit, and probably not next to the bit where loud Americans tramp around in it.

The walk was beautiful in its own right, though, and the sounds and smells were great. The sweat, as usual, was very real and everywhere, but you get used to it. I eventually spotted a toucan about a bloody mile away in what was an unusually impressive bit of perceptive work from me. It was too far away for pics, but we got a good view through the binoculars. We saw some delightful lizards which I photographed, as well as some hummingbirds. Hummingbirds are tough to snap, but by the time of writing, I have achieved it and will reveal it in all its glory at a dramatic and mysterious time of my choosing (next blog).

The swinging bridges were terrifying for me, of course. I’ve done worse things, don’t get me wrong, but do remember I’ve broken multiple hammocks in my days and, being honest, there’s not much more similar to a hammock than a swinging bridge when you think about it, and the consequences are somewhat more severe.

The real highlight of The Rainmaker was the waterfall pool we swam in halfway through. Fresh, cool water in the most serene setting. We languished helplessly in it for 20 minutes or so before going through the awkward ‘not really getting dry then trying not to show too much bum to innocent bystanders while you peel your underwear back on’ process that always follows swimming when out and about.

Refreshed, we returned to Quepos for lunch (seafood cream soup – mwah!). We decided we were not done for the day. On all the top lists of things to do I Quepos was Biesanz Beach. Free to enter, pristine, supposedly ‘escape the crowds’ yet I found it to be more ‘find the crowds’ and with a high chance of seeing monkeys and sloths. Indeed, on the short walk to the beach from the road we heard the distinctive (and slightly terrifying, if you haven’t heard them before) call of the howler monkeys above. We looked up to see a troop of them traversing the canopy. They don’t really come down low to say hi like other monkeys, so no pictures I’m afraid, but I can report they have absolutely humungous testicles. You’ll have to take my word for it.

At the beach there was a sloth up a tree! We ooh’d and ahh’d and took pics before finding a spot on the beach. The pics really don’t show much more than a hairy blob and we saw more in Manuel Antonio National Park, so I’ve not bothered showing those. Billie had a swim and we generally congratulated ourselves on a fairly jam packed and adventurous day.

It was New Year’s Eve! I’m afraid Billie and I aren’t big clubbers or the like, and the chances of us making it to midnight were about the same as a sloth catching a passing tiger heron out of the sky. We made do with celebrating at 6pm Costa Rica time (midnight in the UK). We went to a particularly nice restaurant by the sea after another stonking sunset and retired to our beds. Tomorrow would be an early start for the one and only…

Day 7 – Manuel Antonio National Park, Quepos

Home of sloths. Most visited National Park in Costa Rica. Would the crowds kill it, or would we be wowed out of our flip flops? We were wowed! There was a bit of a queue to get in, but they had limited numbers due to covid so, while still busier than anyone would ever like, it couldn’t be described as crowded. Loads of people had tour guides. We’d decided not to, on the basis we had a load of upcoming guided tours, and that because there are so many tour guides at Manuel Antonio all you have to do is look at what they’re pointing at. Let me tell you now, simply looking at where a guide is pointing does not reveal the subject of their point nine out of ten times. The animals were either highly camouflaged or microscopic, visible only through the scopes the tour guides had. Frustrated, we tore ourselves from the groups, and hit the beach said to be one of the best on the Pacific coast. Playa Manuel Antonio.

Indeed it was gorgeous, though I’d argue we’ve seen better. Hundreds (probably thousands) of hermit crabs scuttled up the beach and we had to guard our backpacks from monkeys who have not only grown accustomed to tourists but who have also learnt how to use a zipper and gain access to your bananas etc.

After a swim, I suggested we take three trails in the park that are much smaller (width wise) and so the tours avoid. Apparently they are just as good for wildlife and we fairly quickly saw squirrel monkeys who were big on my list to spot. They only live in Manuel Antonio and the very near surrounding areas. They’re small, have big long tails, cute faces and are quite friendly. I was happy to get snaps while Billie would point out the best targets to me with her eagle eyes.

Speaking of Billie’s eagle eyes, about ten minutes later, Billie made what will undoubtedly be the best nature spot of the whole holiday. A sloth, up in the trees, carrying her baby, making its way across the canopy. All the sloths we’d seen so far were stationary hairy blobs, childless in their sleepy sloth stupor. This one was a total winner, and we soon had pointed it out to a few other tourists who joined in the spectacle. It was very far away and dark so it’s a bit grainy, but as far sloth pics go, I’m pretty pleased!

Sloth is ‘Perisoso’ in Spanish and so I dubbed Billie ‘Billiesoso’, and to this day maintain she would make a hell of a nature tour guide. Below are other things we saw:

We were mega impressed with our time in Manuel Antonio. While some negative nellies abhor it for being touristic and crowded, it is an amazingly beautiful area with some of the most incredible biodiversity. It lived up to the hype. By this point it was 2pm, and we had to get the bus back to Quepos, have lunch, get a taxi to the hostel to get our bags, get back to Quepos and then get the bus for an hour and a half to Uvita. My sweat induced moment at the start of this blog was written at the hostel grabbing the bags. I’m now writing, cool as a cucumber, by a pool in the jungle of Uvita.

Quepos was awesome. We managed to fit in a bucket load of wildlife in just a few days, and found out what rainforests are all about.

Next up is whale-crazy Uvita. Will we see the legendary humpback? Tune in in a few days to find out. Pura Vida!