Monday 5th August.
Up for breakfast and in the taxi by 7.50ish in the morning. Back to trying to communicate using limited Spanish but we ended up in the right place with the right tickets so obviously it's not too bad. We had to wait around 50 minutes but it wasn't bad as it was a proper station not some random street with lots of randomers sniffing round your bags. The coach was nice, although extremely hot and clammy. The trip took around 3 hours, I napped for a lot of it and I think Liam did too. Some of the views were nice, lots of lush green forest everywhere. And it was interesting going through the towns and seeing locals walking about and getting on with every day life.
We arrived at our hostel in manuel Antonio, it was so hot and humid but still no sun. We were shown to our room but it hadnt been cleaned from the last people so we had to stand around and wait for it to be sorted. It's a bit dingy but its fairly cheap and we shouldn't be in there much anyway so it shouldn't matter. We caught up on emails etc then went for a walk to see the pool down the bottom of the hill. The view was really nice with the sea in the distance surrounded by all the forest. We walked some more, stopped at a restaurant for food, then walked even more, just round the streets which have reverted back to no pavements like we had in asia. After a long time out and a lot of sweat later we nipped into the supermarket for a couple of things before heading back to the hotel. We tried to book onto a couple of things and caught up with a couple of people briefly on Facebook as well as me writing the blogs because I was really behind.
On the balcony you can just sit and watch the rainforest right in the back garden, we were watching a sloth for ages in the tree right in front of us, and some toucans were on the trees too. All in all a pleasant evening.
Tuesday 6th August
I'm writing this on the 11th so may struggle to remember details.
We were up, breakfasted and out waiting for the bus for 7am this morning. The journey down was nice, it's quite hilly with lots of hotels and houses to look at, plus the forest and beach in the background. We were a bit early so had time to buy some fruit juice and relax looking at the beach for 10 minutes or so before meeting our guide Johan.
He was perhaps 26 or 27 years old and very intelligent and good at what he does. His English was brilliant and he knew so much about the forest and the animals. We saw so many things that if we had just gone by ourselves we would have missed, he found animals so tiny with his naked eye. Once he showed us in the scope we saw but then most of the time even after seeing in the scope then looking after we still couldn't see where it was. We got to see he was looking for types of tree knowing what tended to live on them, signs of things having been eaten a little and how things smelt and looked around the area. We saw little bats on trees, he showed us how some of the big leaves has been nibbled at along the stem to make them hang down and they often hang inside the leaf like a little tent. We saw lots of little frogs, he found them in leaves and showed us the different colours. When they sleep they turn very pale because the heart slows down so much there's barely any blood going round their body. We saw strange little mushrooms that were turned upside down like a bowl. They collect water and some frogs lay their eggs in there. They wait for them to be tadpoles and carry them on their backs up out of the way, all very strange stuff I'd never heard of before.
There were sloths, 2 toed and 3 toed. He showed us the difference in their shape and colouring, and how different their head shapes were. The 2 toed is quite a bit cleverer and faster, with sharp teeth which it uses to eat meat. They sleep in the day and hunt at night. The 3 toed are slower and more stupid and tend to be active in the day because they're vegetarian so it doesn't really matter. Either way they sleep for a least 18 hours and are very weird to watch.
There were lots of different types of crickets with many different colours, lots of types of birds. He even got some bird sounds out on recording at one point to show us more closely how they react to different tones and things - something I wasn't keen on as I had read somewhere you shouldn't really do that. It was interesting all the same.
There were strange looking rodents like giant Guinea pigs and be spiders spinning massive webs. He showed us how strong the webs were and they're unbelievably strong, he even told us scientists have mixed a gene from the spider into goats and they extract the web protein from goats milk to use. They use it in military uniforms and stuff like that- will perhaps have to look into that one but it wouldn't surprise me if it really has happened!
We were shown lots of different plants and all the while could hear howler monkeys inside the forest. We eventually got to see a small family of them up high in the trees through the scope. They were relaxing, one had a tiny baby with hardly any fur curled up against it, it must have only been a few day old. We also saw lots of white faced monkeys playing and searching for food and looking out for danger on the forest floor.
All the while we were talking to Johan about all kinds of stuff not just animals and the forest. We finished off the walk by going along the beach in an attempt to see some big snakes lounging in the tree branches but unfortunately we didn't find any. We did see a baby sloth or toddler is probably better, and some tracks from a big turtle. We followed it and it had made 3 big holes, Johan said it was likely eggs were laid in one but it makes more to try and confuse animals that may forage for them.
After a long morning the tour was over, we parted ways and were going to lie on the beach because it was gorgeous and actually sunny for the first time. Unfortunately I had forgotten the sun cream mainly due to the fact it hasn't been needed which meant we couldn't sit in the sun. We ended up having to go back mainly due to Liam being a big baby, so we had t walk out of the park and get a bus back. Liam lost a sock in the process which made him even more of a big baby!
It was a good job we went back though as there were issues with booking for our bud the next day which we were needed for, so we sorted that then went all the way back to the park, re entered and had to walk all the way back around the loop. By the time we got back the sun had as good as gone, surprise surprise! Despite that it was lovely and warm and we spent a nice hour on the beach, Liam playing in the waves. A raccoon decided to take a chance and grab our bag of food and managed to make off with a banana which was funny. Then the lightning and loud thunder began, really loud thunder. So we went across on the boat out of the park and went back up to the hotel just in time before it hammered it down with rain.
We showered relaxed in the hammock listening to the rain, and had pizza for tea before relaxing in the room before sleep.
