Ciao Tutti,

As most of you know Paolo and I have recently departed on our honeymoon. We chose the wonderful world of Costa Rica (despite our fears of spiders and snakes). We will be spending two weeks here traveling about the country visiting rainforests and beaches!

We landed as scheduled (Nov 24th) in the town of Liberia and picked up our car rental (a Toyota Bego, a 4WD which came in handy later) and then got some lunch. I fed the stray dog some leftovers, not realizing it would be the first of hundreds I would see (not all that day, but CR is flooded with them). However, they all look relatively fed, and its hard to tell strays from the pets since they all run free.

Anyway we headed out for our 4 hour drive to Manual Antonio our first destination of 5. We ended up getting stuck in a traffic jam, the highway is one lane each way so when an accident occurs, it is shut down. For hours. Three, in our case. However, all was not lost on the drive as we saw two monkeys in trees, two Macaws flying and a rainbow.

The next day we hit the national park at Manual Antonio. It was amazing. We saw about 4 sloths, three types of monkeys, and many other intesting bugs, birds, foliage, and etc with the help of a local guide. Once we got to the private beach in the park we realized that’s where the white faced monkeys (capuchin) hang out, going through peoples bags looking for food or bright colored objects they think is food. We got some great shots, and were able to lay on the beach watching them go through the trees and swimmers belongings. At the beach we also saw two large iguanas. The beach itself without the wildlife was fantastic, white sand warm water.

The next day we hit the park again during the day, followed by a massage, and headed into town for the night. The night life was lacking, but we caught the local schools putting on a sort of marhcing band Christmas concert, which was very fun to watch.

The following morning we took a guided tour of the private rainforest of the hotel. We saw two poison dart frogs and the scent of a very large snake. The tour guide was very knowledgeable, and I found what he said about the tourism here very interesting. Yes, tourism leaves a negative imprint in the environment. However, if it weren’t for the tourism there wouldn’t be any forests left, it would all be farmland and banana trees, etc. Only in the last 20-30 years or so, they realized the money tourism brings, and have started rebuilding cleared forests. They have also started making forest corridors so the wildlife can move around, as the forest have become small and isolated, leading to inbreeding and other problems. Our hotel reserve was one of the these corridors, and since they and other hotels in the area started doing it, they had increaded the endagered squirrel monkey troops from just 5 to 7 in the last two years in the Manual Antonio area. We were lucky enough to see the squirrel monkeys both days in the park.

Stay tuned for the next part of the adventure, The Road to Monteverde!

-K