I was going to take a group tour – but I don’t like people I don’t know. Then my amigo Phil said he wanted to go with me. My other Amigo Brian who lives in Jaco, knows a guy that keeps cars in his backyard and rents them to cost cutting gringos – that’s Phil and Me, Phil is from Florida.
We were warned that the roads were bad, and the bridges worse. So I was happy that Phil, who is used to driving on the wrong side of the road, voluteered to drive. I got to take some pictures.
Phil is a painter. He does very detailed wildlife paintings and was a great companion to a national park in Costa Rica. Which, I forgot to mention is Manuel Antonio National Park.
Phil took his SLR to get some resource material for his 1 year painting and personal exploration. He used to have a landscaping business but sold it, and his house, and his car to move to Costa Rica to give the painter dream a fair trial. He is a very talented painter. He also has a picture of his daughter by his bed.
Phil and I both aproached our journey through the park seriously. I was determined to see something impressive after risking my life travelling over the Costa Rican roads to get there. On the immediate entrance I saw a very large iguana… so what… I had seen hundreds by now. We walked for another 5 minutes then, look… right in the tree fork was a beautiful, friendly looking long nosed creature. I’m told it was a Tamarindo. I am also told by the ranger that I went way too close and it came very close to attacking me!
Being from Brisbane one skill I have acquired over the years is the ability to spot Koalas in the trees whenever I go to Noosa Headland. Sloths are not unlike koalas, sure they are a bit bigger and a different shape but the overall attributes are pretty much the same. They are both.. well ’sloths’ and just hang around in the tree tops. My skills paid off and within a few more minutes I had targetted my first sloth way in the tree top. Phil took the prize though when we were wandering off the main path and turned a corner and… there she was, only head height in the tree. She had just given birth to a baby sloth which was actually a bit gross, I didn’t notice at the time but when I looked back at the pictures there was still an umbilical cord and blood! I actually felt extrememly guilty about disturbing her when I saw the pictures and realised she had literally just given birth.
If you look the Costa Rican Critters gallery you can see some of the animals that I managed to get pictures of. There were many more and one of them that I could not get a decent photo of was actually my favourite. It was something that the americans were just passing off as common but to me the giant red-headed woodpecker ‘took the cake’. Woodpeckers are not generally a glorified animal. I have seen plenty of sloths on TV but only rarely have I seen a real woodpecker – only the animated variety. It was sooo cool, a big read head with a punk hair (feather) style. What the hell does this thing live on, and why does it make it’s life so difficult that it has to peck it out of the tree trunk. OK it must be a bit stupid! But I did find something immensely satisfying about watching it knock it’s beak hard into the tree over and over again.
Around and in the park there are also some nice beaches, in fact I was getting used to the black sand at Jaco and only realised again how nice white sand it when I travelled to Manuel Antonio. One thing I will always remember though is going over the bridges to get there. UNfortunately I have too many pictures to put many galleries up but those of you that know me will no doubt get to see my pictures at some stage. For anyone just visiting this site check out the Costa Rican Critters gallery for some of the photos I took in the park.