Costa Rica's Little-Big National Park

It had not been two decades since we first traveled through Costa Rica.

“Look, it's not like here” assure us Glen and Rose Marie, an American couple who live part of the year in Montezuma, where we met them. “We were looking for a house there for a long time. It was all too expensive. Furthermore, the more we searched the more we realized how developed and urbanized it was becoming.”

Already at the time of our inaugural journey through typical lands, the PN Manuel António was revealed to be the unavoidable but debatable destination that it is today.

From Quepos – the city that serves as its gateway, to the peninsula in the shape of a whale's tail, which extends into the park – a myriad of lodges, resorts, bars, tour agencies and almost other businesses followed one another. all dedicated to welcoming and serving the hordes of visitors arriving, above all, from North America and Europe.

Between the Christmas and New Year's Eve 2020, for the more than obvious reason for the Covid 19 pandemic, foreigners were sorely missed.

In compensation, in those days, the ticos flocked to the park and the beaches around it in droves.

At the Door of the Always Competitive Manuel António National Park

We installed half walls with the park. Whenever we got up, we came across a growing line, starting at the portico and extending to the right of the La Posada and Jungle who welcomed us.

Even though controlled by SINAC, the Costa Rican National System of Conservation Areas, the successive sold out places dictated that we postpone admission.

Thus, we give priority to the mangrove swamped with animals that surrounds the island of Damas, in the middle of the estuary of the Cotos river. And we strolled along the outer beaches, highlighting the long and crowded Espadilla, full of vacationers determined to make the last vacation of the year memorable.

Delivered to bathing picnics, lively conversations and the different radical and marine activities that local operators impose on them.

The tombolo isthmus that connects the coast to Ponta Catedral.

At its southeastern tip, Espadilla beach borders the bobbin lace of these parts.

It is a tongue of sand formed by the accumulation of currents. In addition to the jungle, it is surrounded by a natural fortification of rocks, a small lagoon fed by a stream and a discouraging barrier of tropical vegetation.

In this green and shady corner, we find a marginal community that enjoys, at the same time, a privileged isolation and the invigorating energy of the place.

Vendors from slush and snacks.

As for the surf, a few curious adventurers climb rocks above bet to move to the southern extension of Playa Espadilla, already an integral part of PN Manuel António and, as such, supposedly safe from such intrusions.

We arrived on Monday, the day the park closes for the rest of Nature and maintenance and restoration work on the tracks and infrastructure.

Finally, Entry into the Lush Jungle of PN Manuel António

Already tired of waiting, on Tuesday, as soon as we could, we made the entry.

In a few moments, we are dazzled by what makes PN Manuel António worthwhile despite the excessive civilization that surrounds him.

We were instructed to join the group led by Sylvia van Baekel, a Dutch woman living in Costa Rica for sixteen years.

In the frenzy of access, we get confused and join another guide. It didn't matter. The guides at PN Manuel António have the good habit of sharing their findings with each other.

Okay, when at last Sylvia sees us pass and claims us to her core of followers, on a few hundred meters of trail, we've already spotted and appreciated two sloths, a basilisk lizard, and an elusive flock of howler monkeys.

Preguiça moves along a tree in PN Manuel António.

We were just getting started.

PN Manuel António is in fact tiny. Covers an area of ​​16 km², while the PN Corcovado, which we would explore a few days later, covers 425 km².

PN Manuel António. Tiny but Exuberant and Crammed with Animals

In its apparent insignificance, Manuel António concentrates a good part of the wild species characteristic of Costa Rica:

three species of monkeys, the howler, the capuchin monkey and the spider monkey and, from a total of 109 species of mammals, it also welcomes coatis, peccarys, armadillos and, offshore, dolphins and whales.

Among the 184 species of birds we find toucans, woodpeckers, parakeets, different hawks and red-headed vultures. Reptiles, we saw iguanas and snakes.

The end of the El Perezoso Vehicular trail passes by a bar/restaurant with its terrace. Right there, as we sat down to make up for the already problematic lack of breakfast, we spotted two sloths in the treetops above.

From there, towards the sea, the trail leads to the entrance to the bobbin lace well signposted by a fluttering Costa Rican flag and an observation tower overlooking the jungle.

The community of park guides is used to releasing their groups there and catching up on conversations about the fauna found and other topics in vogue.

Whoever receives the release order quickly finds himself in a kind of Costa Rican Eden.

A few steps take us from the sultry shadow of the jungle to the white, curved sands of Playa Manuel António to the east.

Even only accessible through the park, with a ticket that can be considered expensive, this cove of lush vegetation and gentle sea also welcomes more people than we expected.

Nor does the relative overcrowding diminish its verdant beauty, even more valuable if we take into account that the PN Manuel António was established in 1972 by the government as a resolution of a lasting conflict.

The Dispute That Aroused the Establishment of the PN Manuel António

The dispute arose when, under the United Fruit Company and its banana plantations, Noel Thomas Langham acquired the area between Espadilla Sur and Manuel António beaches and there decided to install a gate that prevented access to the sands that, at that time, visitors to the capital San José they had become accustomed to attending.

Intimidated by the unexpected opposition, Langham sold the property to Arthur Aimé Bergeron, an American-born French Canadian. The latter regained Langham's position even more uncompromisingly.

Visitors to San José were joined by young people from Quepos, who also love the disputed beaches, united in a nucleus of contestation and social justice, meanwhile called Grupo Pro-Parque, in keeping with the newly blossomed idea that that coastline becomes should become a state park.

Arthur Aimé Bergeron nurtured a dream of creating a tourist hub there that would enrich him. Accordingly, he fenced off the lands and defended them with aggressive dogs.

Dissatisfied, the young people of Quepos destroyed everything that prevented them from passing. For this crime some of them were imprisoned.

Now, it is known that the leader of the protest movement was called Manuel António Ramirez Muñoz (1940-1998) better known as Balu, descendant of one of the pioneering families of the park area, arrived in 1948, in full force of the United Fruit Company .

Herself - Host municipality de Quepos ratified the role of Balu. He honored him with a bust.

However, the authorities were sensitive to the reasons for ticos from Quepos and San Jose. A

Some time later, when Bergeron refused a mediation meeting, they decided to expropriate the property and transform it into the desired national park.

of the unusual Tombolo to Ponta Catedral

We continue along it, along the seashore, to the left end of the whale's tail that encloses the tombolo

In those parts, a couple entertains themselves with selfies and more selfies produced in a fragile balance on the top of an isolated cliff.

Other bathers use the staircase which, in a period of normality, begins the trail to Ponta Catedral, millennia ago, an island that silting joined the peninsula in front.

But it was just after the rainy season in Costa Rica.

As it did in much of Central America, Hurricane ETA caused damage to several areas of the Pacific coast, including trails, viewpoints and walkways, which were almost mandatory in this section of the park.

At the time of our visit, these same wooden steps were left to the inaugural viewpoint of the route.

At its base, a bunch of Capuchin monkeys, the most ruffians in Costa Rica, approached the bathers in search of deals.

Photo this, photo that, a member of your gang spots an unattended backpack.

In a flash, disappear with it into the branches of a tree. He only throws it down again, after searching the interior and concluding that it did not contain human treats.

From the viewpoint, we can enjoy the bay to the east of the bobbin lace and the density of the tropical forest that serves as its backdrop.

Returning to the beach, we cross the heart of the jungle to the more open, long and vacant beach of Espadilla Sur beach.

With a view of the main Espadilla, the adjacent forest and the civilization that dots it, raised by the extrapolated, more than justified fame of the Manuel António National Park.

Catamaran passengers admire the distant sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

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