Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio — Attraction in Quepos

I think this park is worth visiting, but first…

PARKING MAFIA – Please, please, don't fall for this local mafia.

This is what they do: as you are getting close to the park down the hill, one of them will ask you if you're going to the park or the beach and if you have tickets or tour reservations. It doesn't really matter what your answer is, he will ask you to follow the directions of the guys further down. These guys, who can be only two or six, will stop in the middle of the road and with a whistle direct you to the parking on the right. They don't even tell you how much they are going to charge when you ask, they say keep going to the parking for more information. Once you make that right turn you are at their mercy and will charge you whatever they want for all the “services” they provide. I’ve heard that they charge a minimum of $20-30 plus for “all day parking”.

This is what you are going to do: you have options - (1) if you want to play their game, answer their questions and pretend you're stupid to see how this mafia works, or (2) don't stop and keep going even when they block you, just don't stop. If you run over one or two that's ok, just keep going. But if you run over three or more, then that might be a problem with the locals.

I've heard that they sometimes have a police there too to make sure all tourists follow the rules. Ha!

PARKING – I am not sure about this because some say that the beach parking is free and most say it is not. Either way do not park where anyone tells you to park. Keep going all the way down the street and park in the last parking lot to the left before the roundabout. You will see that it is mostly empty because the mafia have been very successful that day. They will charge you $5 more or less but don't pay more than $6. If it's true that the parking is free, I don't mind paying $5 all day when I pay $25 for 3 hours in DC. I believe that the free parking they refer to is the street parking by the road in front of the beach not the private parking lots.

PARK ENTRANCE – Since I park in the last parking lot, I go through the one that is right by the parking entrance. You will see a lot of vendors not matter which way you go.

PARK TICKETS – Make sure you buy them on their website. It's a bit frustrating, especially on the phone. Please note that it does NOT matter what time you choose, you can enter the park any time. These are their covid hours as local people will tell you. So, don't be disappointed when you can't buy the “time slot” you want.

PARK – If you're a nature lover, you will like it. I can't tell you if it's a must or not, this depends on you. Bring a reusable water bottle as they do not allow plastic bottles.

PRIVATE TOURS – I'm not trying to deprive locals from making a living, but… if you are on a budget like I am, do this on your own. Research and read about the park ahead of time. There's no guarantee that you will see a lot of exotic beauties that day. As you walk through the park, you will see the private tours stopping with a binocular on a tripod and EVERYBODY stops trying to see what they are seeing. Either if you pay for it or not, you will stop too. The other private guides will make the same stop.

BEACH – Yes, if you want a beautiful calm and quiet beach inside the park, stay here. I prefer the public one across the park, it's as beautiful. The waves are fun, is good for people watching, surfers and parasailing, cute dogs, etc. And, yes, a few vendors will try to sell you things, drinks or food but you can decline or check them out. They were polite and not annoying to me. Only you can decide what's...

You absolutely need to plan ahead and buy tickets online, otherwise you will unknowingly drive in and be herded, forced into the public beach lot by locals trying to make money off your experience. They are ready and waiting in what appears to be official park uniform attire, they will jump in front of your car and as I said before, agressively direct you in to talk to their "main man" Gustavo, who will tell you access is limited, sold out, and only through them will you have access. We paid a hefty amount of money for a boat tour we didn't plan on (but was actually the most fun we had of the whole experience), a "guided tour", food, and access to what we found out, was a public beach. What we planned to do in one day ended up being stretched out into 2, due to the park closing before 5pm. Again, boat tour was GREAT, we saw so much wildlife, and even had monkeys come into the boat and climb all over us, and we had the boat to ourselves. Not sure if we managed to luck out on that part or what, but it made us feel better about what we paid for the experience. (You more than likely could book the same or similar tour for less on your own, but having the boat to ourselves was a big plus for us) They have a cute little food bus at the beach entrance (accessible to those using the beach too, so not an inclusive offer to those cattled in by Gustavo and crew).. they try to only set you up with a typical dish of costados, a hefty plate of protein, rice, beans, salad, fried plantations, very tasty- but know if you're already sucked in to this whole scheme, you can and should choose your own food. I did this the second day; I don't think they liked my push back but TOUGH for what I paid to be there. Day 2 was the "guided tour" and it was nothing more than one of their own (so not an official guide) stopping at every little thing and talking... for what we paid, there should have been a shuttle to take us right to the entrance of the park (we were unknowingly still a 10 minute walk from the gate due to their human barricade at the beach entrance) it is done purposely to be exposed to the over commercialized, over stimulating amount of locals trying to sell something; clothing, souvenirs, coconut water, and most important, plain water as park policy is no plastic, no food. It is an absolute mob of people after 10am, by the way, similar to walking the streets of New York City. Beware this guide will take you on what is more of a gravel road than the more impressive boardwalk infrastructure that runs alongside this road. I just wanted to feel more immersed in the jungle here and this route didn't do that. The 'guide' will follow you up to the gift shop/cafeteria they have, and you have the option to break off on your own at this point, and we did. We were accompanied by another couple from our area back home who was more than ready to take on the park on their own at the point too, and from there we spent time at the beach before ultimately heading out and learning of the boardwalk trail I mentioned earlier.

I wrote this out to bring awareness to the fact that you absolutely NEED to plan ahead and buy your tickets/experiences ahead of time to avoid some of what I did when I came. Bring a reusable water bottle to save on the headache of that. Be ready to leave your food/snacks home. Be ready to have your bag searched upon entry.

Overall, I had a much better experience at nearby national parks, but I know how popular this one is.

**all of my media is from the boat tour...

We took the guided walk-thru with Mike's Tours. We met the guides from Mike's Tours at El Avión restaurant, and followed their Turismo vans to the official parking lot (there were a number of entrepreneureal hand-wavers along the way attempting to direct us to park in their further-away lots). When you get to the official lot, try to park in a shady spot near the trees - it will help keep your car cool while you're in the park (we parked in perhaps the sunniest of spots, and it took a while for the A/C to make things tolerable after).

Hans (with Mike's Tours) was our guide and worked on getting us admitted into the park - which was busy, but not overwhelming. Hans had the sharpest eyes, spotting dragon flies, Jesus lizards (one of which actually performed its namesake impression right after Hans explained its name in association with walking on water - quickly leaving its perch on a nearby log to race across the surface of the water and nab some scrumptious snack before returning back to its perch in a flash), poisonous grasshoppers hanging upside down in a distant tree, red-faced land crabs with purple-hued legs hidden in faraway leaves, white-lined bats blended in with the markings of a tree's bark, and more, all the while helping us take photos with our camera thru his spotting scope, and informing us about the ages of various trees and how the mosquito population is controlled naturally, etc.

By happenstance, we were also treated to observe a troop of white-faced monkeys which we could at first hear only from a distance (branches moving - the monkeys themselves were not emitting many vocalizations at all) before they came closer as they combed thru the trees searching for food (none of the monkeys approached us, they knew we didn't have food - food is not allowed to be brought into the park). Some of the monkeys approached within a few feet of us for some really interesting photos and videos).

At the end of the tour, we were treated to some mango juice and fresh fruit (papaya, watermelon, and pineapple), then headed to the beaches. We decided to stay at the first/closest beach (called the "second beach" locally, for some reason). It was nice to have showers and washing areas nearby to rinse a good deal of the sand off after we were done having fun. Beautiful clear blue/green water, but no ocean life spotted.

As we took the raised boardwalk out of the park towards the exit/entrance, we were able to see quite a few different species of crabs of various sizes.

Upon exiting the park, there was an immediate onslaught of pushy people peddling coconut-water pods, which was exciting (but more annoying than exciting) - just be prepared for that.

We decided to refresh by way of the Gelato shop just outside the park entrance gates. Though it was delicious, it was not the best deal to get the large 4-flavor size... seems like we got the same amount of Gelato with the 4-flavor large as the 2-flavor size, just not as much of each flavor.

Overall, the park itself is a neat experience, and with Mike's Tours's very own "Hans Solo", it was made...