Photos by Nanci Blog

Three-toed sloth in Manuel Antonio National Park, Quepos, Costa Rica BRUTAL! Our suitcases need to be outside our door at 5:30 a.m.! And we need to be ready to leave the Crown Plaza Coribici at 6:20 a.m. It will take us about 3 hours to get to Manuel Antonio Park .  It's a beautiful day and many people will be headed to the beach, Manuel Antonio and Quepos have lots of beaches so traffic down there should be fun. We head to the Pacific Coast once again and stop in the town of Jacó to stretch our legs and take a few photos. Jacó has beautiful black sand beaches and is loved by surfers. It's about five minutes away from Hermosa Beach which has pipes and beach breaks for experienced surfers only. We travel another hour and a half and reach Quepos. Passing through the town we see the public beach and end up at our hotel, the  Hotel San Bada . It's located right next to the  Manuel Antonio Park   entrance. Our rooms won't be ready until later in the afternoon and w...

Day 3 of our Costa Rican adventure (December  4) started early, again, but the only sounds we heard were crickets and jungle night sounds. The howlers greeted us at 5 AM with their distinctive "barking", but that was OK because we had to be up and at breakfast by 7 AM. On our walk from our bungalow we saw a lot of beautiful flowers. We met up with Carlos, our boat driver for the day. Today we're  traveling in an open boat to see the tree tops better...you'll  see why in a minute. Off we go with our life jackets, cameras and binoculars. Costa Rica is a birders paradise. There are so many local and migratory birds here, it's mind boggling. Like this Blue Heron who just happened to catch breakfast as we motored by. The trees begin to rustle and we all look up to where Carlos is pointing-howler monkeys pop out into view. One of our travelers spotted a sloth high up in the tree. Way to go Martha! In addition to birds, lots of iguanas are seen on the trees.  There are G...