And just like that, someone's lunch is gone!!
OK, let me start from the beginning. On Monday Dave and I visited the Manuel Antonio National Park which is considered to be one of the best on the Pacific Coast if not the whole of Costa Rica. It is a combination of about 5 acres of land and 135 acres of marine reserve. You can hike through several different trails and most lead down to a beautiful beach.
The trails are easy walking and we went about 8:00 so that we could try to get a glimpse of some animals before they went into hiding for the day.
So, after paying the gringo price of $16 each we headed into the park. We chose to go without a guide for a few reasons, first because we like to take our time and challenge ourselves to find some animals on our own which we did, second because we are cheap and didn't want to pay for it and third because there were so many people with guides that for a few animals we just watched where they were looking and then looked in the same spot.
We spotted things big and small including a couple of sloths, some capuchin monkeys, a howler monkey, a whitetailed deer just grazing on the side of the path, a strange striped cricket and a couple of different lizards.
But the real show came once we got to the beach. Unsuspecting sun worshippers put their things down, laid out their towels and proceeded to strike their best pose for anyone watching. What they didn't realize was that they were not being watched by the other sunbathers on the beach but rather by the locals, waiting to make their move. You see, in this area the locals are the monkeys, raccoons and iguanas and if you are not careful they will steal your lunch, or your sunglasses or anything else they want.
I heard of these scavengers so when we arrived at the beach we found a nice tree to hang our bags on and then locked them up as well. If they wanted to get any of our things they were going to have to work for it. But alas, others were not so wise and we witnessed raccoons sneaking up behind people and grabbing things right out of their open bags, one was even brazen enough to play a tug of war of sorts with one girl for her bag. Lucky for her she won!
Most people got wise to them and started to either hang their bags or at least arm themselves with big sticks in case they were the next target. Oh, except for the lady who had the first item of the day stolen, she later proceeded to sit on her blanket with a mango in her hand and then was surprised when a big fat iguana came over to get himself a bite!!!
So we spent much of the rest of the day watching people watch their things along with seeing a few very aggressive igunanas defending their territories from each other.
As we headed out of the park Dave caught some mention in the dead leaves on the path and we caught a glimpse of the very cool looking Jesus Christ Blizzard, aptly named because it can walk on water. Cool way to end the day.
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