Manuel Antonio National Park
Wednesday, January 3
In December 2023, Christoph and I took two weeks of vacation to get to the next country of our trip and spend a few days there. So we left beautiful Belize and flew to Costa Rica!
Costa Rica is the third smallest country in Central America and is located between Nicaragua and Panama. The country has only about 5.2 million inhabitants, but all the more different animal and plant species. A large part of the area of Costa Rica is rainforest and there are about 30 National Parks that you can visit. These National Parks and the beautiful rainforests were the reason why Christoph and I wanted to visit Costa Rica. Since Costa Rica has become very westernized due to the many expats and retirees from the USA and unfortunately also very expensive, Christoph and I did not want to stay in Costa Rica for a whole month, but decided to only spend a few days there before moving on to our next travel destination where we were planning to stay a bit longer. So we spent the end of December and the beginning of January in Costa Rica, traveling around the country and visiting some of the many great National Parks and rain forests.
The fact that in Costa Rica you’ll find a huge variety of plants and animals was already apparent on the bus trips through the country. Wherever you looked - you saw lush green meadows and forests everywhere and it felt like all the plants and trees were simply bigger and greener than in other countries! During our time in Costa Rica we stayed in various hostels that were located next to or in the actual rainforest. In the mornings, while having breakfast in the open kitchen, we regularly saw a flock of red macaw parrots flying over our heads - birds that I had never seen in the wild before. During the day, monkeys scurried over the many branches of the trees and at night you could hear the typical jungle noises of screaming animals and chirping insects.
Even though we didn’t like the country’s cities that much, we were all the more enthusiastic about the beautiful National Parks. A particular highlight for us was the "Manuel Antonio" National Park. There we went on a guided tour with a guide who was not only very knowledgeable about the flora and fauna of Costa Rica, but also carried a huge, professional telescope with him. In the National Park itself it was strictly forbidden to deviate from the official paths (in order to protect the animals). While we walked through the park with our small group, our guide constantly pointed out various insects, reptiles, birds and other animals that we would have completely missed as tourists. Some animals and insects could also be seen with the bare eye, other animals were so well hidden between the trees that they could only be seen through the guide's telescope. We quickly realized how the not-so-cheap tour in the National Park had been worth it. The high-quality telescope enabled us to observe the wild animals there from up close without disturbing the animals. During our tour we saw a wide variety of colorful birds, snakes, lizards, a chameleon, various species of monkeys and my absolute highlight: some sloths hanging relaxed in the trees. After the official part of the tour was over, we were able to spend two more hours on the National Park´s beautiful, white beach before the bus finally took us back to our hostel. An unforgettable day in one of the rainforests of Costa Rica!
Although I was able to start the drawing of the sloth in the National Park, unfortunately I didn't come around finishing it until the next day in the hotel. At the time the sketchbook photo was taken, unfortunately there were no sloths near our hostel, so the sketchbook photo only shows the wonderful rainforest of Costa Rica.
