Unlike the hot and dry beaches of Guanacaste, the country south of Jacó transits to an increasingly humid and hot climate, creating a more tropical landscape for Costa Rica travel. Humid forests spill right down to palm treelined sandy white beaches.
Manuel Antonio Park and its many hotels sits on the other side of a mountain ridge from the small town of Quepos, about two hours south of Jaco. Before the tourism boom, Quepos survived on fishing and agriculture. It began its life as a company town, built in the 1930s to support the United Fruit banana plantations that lined the coastal plain. By the 1950s, production of African palm oil became the main source of income, after Panama disease destroyed the banana crop. On the long drive in, you’ll pass rows and rows of tightly packed palm oil trees, as well as some surviving banana plantations. A few small company towns live on, distinguished by the geometrical arrangement of the turquoise houses, some built on stilts, usually around a soggy soccer field. Other agro-industries have sprung up to break the mono-crop dependency: Teak trees are harvested for furniture, gmelina trees for paper pulp, and green fields of rice dot the landscape. The recently improved coastal road follows the route of the old banana train and river crossings are still made over rickety, single lane, former train trestles. Riding south from Playa Estrillos Oeste the road curves inland from the coast through a medium-sized town (where you’ll probably wait in line for the bridge) of Parrita, 25 km/15.5 miles from your destination. You reach the sea again at Quepos.
Didn’t find any pirate treasure during your Costa Rica travel on Coco’s Island or Isla Cano? Then keep your eyes open in the new area of Manuel Antonio Park, near the river. Just before the ruthless pirate Henry Morgan sacked Panama City, the church loaded 700 tons of gold and silver and sent it away on three ships; the paperwork was destroyed so that the pirates could never know its location. The treasure has never been found and its whereabouts remains a mystery to this day.
Quepos
Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.
~ Jean Paul Sartre, 1905-1980
Quepos (KEH-pos), a funky little town just over a small mountain ridge from Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica, is filled with a variety of hotels and B&Bs, plus local and extranjero (foreigner)-owned restaurants. You’ll know you’re here while on tours when you see the wide malecón, sea wall, where the road splits. One route runs along the wall’s top, the other goes below and serves as a town street. In the evening, along the front row of buildings facing the malecón, street vendors hawk parejos (colorful beach wraps), jewelry and fancy carved hash pipes – big sellers in this bohemian seaside harbor village. Apart from young people touring to save colones, it also attracts North American fishermen – this area of the Pacific has taken some prize-winning catches. Turn at the last left in the downtown area and follow the street past the soccer field. After a sharp, hairpin right turn you’re on your way uphill. We once walked the sevenkm/ 4.4-mile tour to the park. It was great at the time, but automobile traffic has increased enough to make it less than bucolic now. You can also catch a bus (about 50¢) to the park entrance from the bus station next to the market. Taxis to the park are US $5 from town.
AUTHOR TIP: If your Costa Rica travel is by bus from San José, buy your return tickets well in advance; seats sell out, especially for Sunday afternoons and evenings. If you’re in Quepos on Mother’s Day, August 15, you’ll witness the whole town turn out for a big soccer match of sons, the Flacas (skinnys) against the Gordos (fats). Kick-off is at noon, but there are celebrations all day.
Nightlife
Nightlife along the Manuel Antonio road in Costa Rica is confined to the hotel bars and restaurants and the lower-rent places near the park entrance. Mar y Sombra, a restaurant-bar that by all rights shouldn’t be there because it’s so close to the beach, is quite full at night. It turns into a dance hall on weekends during the dry season. The poolside bar at Si Como No attracts a more mature group, and the Barba Roja restaurant and bar is a very popular evening hangout. The casino and sports bar at El Byblos is relaxing – it even has billiard tables.
Costa Verde’s two impossible-to-miss roadside eateries get big crowds, especially La Cantina, because it offers live music. El Avion is a cool choice, too, for Costa Rica travel.
Hard-core party animals head to the town’s two discos and a bunch of happening bars for dance and romance possibilities. Unlike Manuel Antonio, which is spread out over a long distance, Quepos is perfect for barhopping during a Costa Rica tour. Mar y Blues, next to L’Aventura Multiboutique, is the place where you can get a real hot dog and a beer. Wacky Wanda’s claims the cheapest food and drinks and the coolest air in town. The four-block area around here is home to most of Quepos’ watering holes. The next block over, check out Banco Bar. Dos Locos restaurant gets a crowd for their live acoustic music every Wednesday and Friday night. There’s a bit of open mike for musicians in waiting.
But the real nightlife in town is at either Disco Iris or Maracas. Disco Arco Iris is set in a grounded barge, approached across a gangplank, located just before the entrance to downtown. A small dance floor overflows with steamy dancers, and at both clubs the music is a mix of Latin pop, salsa, reggae and rock. Maracas is a popular hole-in-the-wall with a large dance club that doesn’t open until midnight. It sometimes has live bands, which bumps the cover charge up. It’s south of town; follow the road past the downtown into a fishing/industrial area. There is underage drinking at both clubs.
In Damas, a nearby town, you’ll find lots of local flavor at the Rancho Allegre, a huge dance hall with a bar, pool tables and a cock-fighting ring. It’s not a threatening situation, but you may feel more comfortable here if you speak Spanish.
Gay-Friendly Options
Manuel Antonio has attracted a fair number of gays and lesbians for Costa Rica travel – both Ticos and foreigners – who live here full time, and the word is out that it’s a good, tolerant destination for gay and lesbian tourists.
Manuel Antonio National Park
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.
~ John Muir, American naturalist
Once Manuel Antonio Park opened, tourists “discovered” the area’s natural beauty – but they weren’t the first. Ponce de Leon put this area on a map in 1519 while on his way to find the fountain of youth. Juan Vásquez de Coronado explored it in 1563 and encountered the Quepoa, an indigenous tribe of fishermen and divers who brought up unique pink pearls from local seas. Long dead from disease and warfare, all that remains of these people is their name.
The manchineel has many branches, a short trunk and elliptical leaves with a bright green sheen. Found on many Caribbean islands and throughout Central and South America, the dangerous manchineel secretes an acidic poison irritant. Its fruit is said to be the original apple in the Garden of Eden and should not be eaten under any circumstances.
At the end of the beach, Punta Catedral (Cathedral Point) is the heavily-wooded rocky promontory that looks like an offshore island. And that’s what it once was. Thousands of years of shifting sand and sediment formed a geological phenomenon known as a tombolo, the sandy finger that now connects it permanently to the mainland. A hiking trail runs around the punta.
The best beach in the park – perhaps, when it’s not crowded, the best beach for all Costa Rica travel – is south-facing Playa Manuel Antonio, just past Punta Catedral. Gentle waves, celadon green water, bright-white sand, forest trees topped by flowering vines – this is paradise. Hiking trails lead uphill from the beach; the one parallel to the shore connects with hidden beaches, the last of which is actually named “hidden beach,” Playa Escondido. It’s a strenuous hike to a completely uncrowded destination. Stop and listen to a cacophony of forest sounds on the trails. Alert ears will pick up layer upon layer of nature’s music.
Just as Manuel Antonio Park represents all the best and beauty of the national park system in Costa Rica, it has also come to symbolize its failings. Although it gained its status in 1972, the government has so far not compensated all the owners for expropriated land. In 1995, a 1.7-hectare/ 4.3-acre area on property that was declared a part of the park, but not paid for in over 22 years, was clear-cut. Unresolved compensation claims (perhaps as much as 47% of the country’s parkland) are an albatross around the national park system. But the good news is that Manuel Antonio was expanded by 600 to 700 hectares (1,482-1,729 acres) in 2001, making it nearly twice its original size by buying land around the Naranjo River. This “new” section is unpublicized, but it’s accessible for Costa Rica travel by trails (not well marked; ask a park ranger). Unfortunately, the government failed to regulate much of the explosive growth outside of Manuel Antonio. In February 1992, Park Director José Antonio Salazar declared to the Tico Times, much to the embarrassment of the Park Service, “We have a park that’s dying.” According to the Times, the small park “cannot sustain a big enough population of tití monkeys to avoid inbreeding.” One of many ecological concerns is that access of park-based monkey troops to other neighboring troops outside the park is restricted by excessive construction and deforestation.
Monkey See, Monkey Do
An alarming indicator of the degradation of the environment is the rapid decline in numbers of the tití monkey, also known as the squirrel monkey. This subspecies of monkey (So citrinellus) is indigenous to the Manuel Antonio area, and a recent survey finds only 1,500 left of the subspecies and only about 4,000 of the entire species itself, down from 200,000 in 1983. The principal cause of local deaths is electrocution on the overhead wires along the road to the park.
Kids Saving the Rainforest
This (www.amazingarts.org) is a unique organization set up in 1999 by then 11-year-old Janine Andrews and her friend Aislin Livingstone. It collects funds to pay to have rope bridges built for monkey crossings. At the Amazing Arts Gallery, the girls sell local handicrafts, jewelry and other art items, plus signed copies of their book, The Legend of the Blue Monkey, written by Janine’s mother and illustrated by Janine, Aislin and a friend Carrie Fedor. The simple, moral story for young children introduces Coco, a blue monkey, who rises above negative peer pressure and remains true to his beliefs. The gallery includes the newest project, “Jugo Mono Rainforest Internet Café,” a full-service coffee shop where you can pick up e-mail, scan photos or documents, make copies, fax, or just relax and enjoy a fruit smoothie, coffee, or herbal tea with friends. The café and gallery are open seven days a week from 8 am to 9 pm and offer a friendly welcome to all comers. All profit goes directly to the cause. Janine’s environmental efforts were featured in National Geographic for Children in 2002.
The best time to see Manuel Antonio Park is early in the morning on a weekday before sun worshippers hit the sands. The best time of year for Costa Rica travel here is during the rainy season. You may be subject to the occasional monsoon-like downpours – usually in the afternoon and evening – but they’re wonderful to fall asleep by. The advantages of coming here at this time of year far outweigh the inconveniences: the vegetation is particularly lush, far fewer people are present, prices are lower, and the park is at its most verdant. Magic.