Manuel Antonio National Park
It is hard to believe that we have arrived at our last stop on this journey. Throughout our expedition, we visited many incredible places and become really good at taking pictures. Now in Manuel Antonio is time to have some fun!
The minute we started along the trails we realized that this park is photographers’ paradise: the white sand against the lush rain forest, the iguanas, the blooming trees and a sea of turquoise waters between us and National Geographic Sea Lion gave us ample fodder for filling the memory cards of our cameras. There were photo shutting sounds, bird sounds and of course the sounds of the interpretation by the naturalist that made the great sightings meaningful.
We had the whole park to ourselves and after about an hour the locals and more tourists started entering the park. This desolated beach became a party of colors, noises and cultures. The animals continued to appear, two-toed and tree-toed sloths, howler monkeys and even toucans were part of this picturesque experience, the more we walked the more we saw.
The Manuel Antonio National Park is one of the smallest but most important parks of the Costa Rican conservation system. Its amazing wildlife and incredible beaches attract a great number of visitors that help provide funds to finance the vast wild areas. Besides the economical importance of this park, the nature guides here take the tourists through the park giving a large group of people an education in nature and conservation.
After walking the numerous trails and taking many pictures we returned to National Geographic Sea Lion for a great lunch and great lectures. So now the big moment has come, our Photo Instructor put together a slide show with the best pictures of the trip, and each of us put up five pictures to share in this slide show. You could feel the joy as the name of each photographer was called as the pictures were showing. What a show!
As sunset approached we all went outside to celebrate not the great pictures but the incredible memories that will stay in our hearts forever.
