As we headed north along the Pacific coastline our next stop was Manuel Antonio. A national park next to a public beach.

We stayed in a funky hotel, complete with airplane accommodation options for those that book early enough.

We headed down to the public beach to take a look but it was high tide and the weekend so it was pretty busy compared to our last beach in Uvita!

The beach was alive, with monkeys heading down from the trees in the late afternoon to harvest what they could, even checking through some people’s belongings.

We took a guided tour in the Manuel Antonio national park which was great.

There was plenty to see, three types of monkeys, humming birds, sloths, tree crabs and red land crabs.

This is a basilisk lizard often called the Jesus Lizard as it walks on water!

Below is a tree crab, who knew they existed!

At the end of the tour you are led to the two beaches in the national park which are just sensational.

On the beach we spotted this iguana sunning itself on a tree trunk.

We decided to do a night tour, but on arrival we found ourselves in a torrential rain storm. To be honest, I was hoping it would be cancelled but when I contacted the tour guide he said ‘best bring your coat!’.

As it happened, it turned out to be a brilliant, if very wet, tour through the jungle. Our guide Frank was excellent, his enthusiasm, knowledge and wit made us quickly forget the rain and focus on what was moving around us instead.

Within minutes we had spotted two red eyed tree frogs and we found ourselves captivated by the experience of wondering through the jungle with our torches searching for life!

A Humming bird shelters from the rain in a tree.

A tailless whip scorpion spider in a tree.

A Jesus Lizard attached to a vine branch.

The frog below is known to spit its venom if threatened and its skin has a toxic coating to deter predators.

After our two jungle wildlife tours we headed back to the Manuel Antonio beach for the day. This time it wasn’t the weekend and the tide was out so it was a lot more chilled.

We loved our day there, and we were rewarded with a wonderful sunset.

The boys from the surf school relaxing at the end of the day with a hard fought game of beach football.

A sunset parasail for this couple made for a dramatic photo.

Another great location that we were sad to leave.

Next we head toward the Arenal volcano at La Fortuna.