Manuel Antonio

We had reserved entry for the national park for 10 am so we had an hour for the kids to play on the beach.

They played "restaurant" and prepared "drinks and food" for us. 

Local touts charge for parking in lots but we had arrived late in the afternoon yesterday and got a free parking spot on a yellow curb next to a bus stop. Police drove by all night and never bothered us. A German tourist parked next to us and asked if it was ok to park. We said yes, but a tour convinced him otherwise and he moved his car.

The entrance to the park was a block inland which we could get to through a shortcut through the woods. Wildlife guides offered their services as they carried spotter scopes on tripods.  

We couldn't bring food or snacks into the park and they did check our bags, for fear that monkeys would steal our food and leave trash everywhere. Entry was $50 for all of us. We passed most of the tourists in groups and saw crabs in the mudflats.

There were monkeys in the trees. The 5x zoom on my phone stopped focusing. Oh well.

Manuel Antonio has one of the nicest beaches we have been to on this trip, and we brought our beach bag. It is a medium size cove with white sand. The waves have a strong undertow. We played here for a couple hours only taking a break to see another beach on the other side of the trees which happened to be same beach we were camped on but just further south and separated by some rocks.

There is a caged concession stand and eating area we went to for lunch. We had a hot dog, fruit cup, chicken and beef roll, and a smoothie ($25). Monkeys tried to enter the caged area unsuccessfully. Howler monkeys howled around us. Thunder clouds rolled in, so we hiked back to the RV and left town.

We stopped at a soda for an earlier dinner. We had a steak plate, empanada, and chicken fingers plate ($22).  We were planning on camping just an hour away to meet up with a couple families Christine had been following on Instagram but they left a couple hours before we arrived. We made it the town of Uvita known for its whale tail beach, another twin cove spit of sand visible at low tide. The campground we stayed at was ok. A bit mosquito-y.

I was able to plug in for an hour before sunset and filled up our water tank. We ended up running the car engine to stay cool in the RV and charge up the batteries for the night. We made popcorn and the kids finished watching a movie on the TV. We planned on leaving Costa Rica tomorrow for Panama.