National Parks

Manuel Antonio National Park

Description : The 3000 acres of the Manuel Antonio National Park is considered one of the most beautiful National Parks of the country. With its white sand beaches, the abundant fauna, exuberant flora, and its scenic footpaths, is one of the most visited in the country. It includes a wooded area, densely populated by monkeys and raccoons, and three exceptionally beautiful beaches, is one of the few areas in which rare squirrel monkey can be found. The footpaths happen through the secondary forest and of the primary forest, dominated by you hoist them of cedar, raft and mangle.

Carara National Park
A Transition Zone

This is the northernmost region of Pacific rainforest remaining in Costa Rica, and is the beginning of the transition zone into the tropical dry forests of the northwest. Carara is one of Costa Rica's most popular National Parks, in large part due to its proximity to San José. This is also where many cruise ship's passengers are bused for a day trip when the liners dock just up the coast at Puerto Caldera, and a common destination for field trips by school children.

Carara is a favorite with bird watchers for several reasons besides its ease of access. First, its position in a transition zone means that residents of both habitats are likely to appear. Second, the Río Grande de Tárcoles has free flowing sections and its waters seep into seasonal marshlands and a shallow oxbow lake covered with hyacinths further expanding number of local habitats. Finally, because it is slightly dryer, and not all of the trees are evergreen, Carara is more open than the rainforests further south making wildlife spotting easier.

One advantage of the relatively large numbers of people that visit Carara is that if you just stop by, you are likely have several quite competent amateur guides at your disposal. Birders are a friendly lot, and they generally like interest from novices (as long as you don't interfere with their spotting. Walk quietly and slowly)
We made a spontaneous stop here, and found that one of the best ways to see wildlife was to look for people with their necks craned, peering into the brush or canopy. We would then stop at a respectful distance, and look where they were looking. More often than not the guide, or one of the birders would invite us over to look through their binoculars or telescope while they described the habits of the bird or animal we were seeing.
About 150 scarlet macaws nest and feed throughout the reserve and can usually be seen around dusk flying west down the Río Tárcoles towards the coastal mangroves where they roost for the night.

In the region:
The coastal highway crosses the Río Tárcoles at the northern edge of the park. If you stop you can nearly always spot crocodiles basking on the banks of the river from a safe vantage point 50 feet above them on the bridge.
Jacó Beach, 13 miles (21 km) south on highway 34 is a "surf party" town running in a strip along a two mile (3 km) beach that is not highly recommended for swimming because of rip tides and the pollution from dumping in the estuaries at either end of the beach. Can't really recommend Jacó.