This past weekend was amazing. My program took us to the Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio, which is on the Pacific coast. First of all, it was beautiful. Second, no one was complaining this weekend. Third, we saw so many animals I didn’t even want to turn my camera off in case something else came into view as we walked. We saw at least five sloths within 40 minutes. Some of them were just curled up in the trees, and others were actually moving. They don’t move fast, but it wasn’t that slow either. Apparently the other kinds of sloths (I think the ones we saw were two-toed…) move much, much more slowly. We even saw one on the ground. And monkeys too! At one point, there were so many monkeys that we were just surrounded everywhere we looked. There were signs that said, “Do not feed the monkeys” but it didn’t matter if people paid attention to them or not because if you had food, the monkeys would just come up and steal it from you, regardless of whether or not the food was being offered to them. Our guide told us that sometimes a few monkeys would bang on a trashcan so that people come over and watch the commotion. Meanwhile, other monkeys are busy rummaging through all the unattended items left on the beach. But even more alarming than the monkeys were the iguanas. They were everywhere we went, but the ones I’m talking about are the ones that were at our hotel. They were scary. Our cabin was the very last one at the top of this small mountain, so it was rather isolated. Iguanas were everywhere. Every time we turned around, there were more. The most frightening part was when we were coming back from breakfast one morning. As we got closer to our cabin, we saw a few on the grass and when we got to one that was directly in our path, we squatted down to get a closer look. We had taken some bananas with us to eat later and then all of a sudden, an iguana jumped out of nowhere ONTO a friend of mine and just snatched his banana. We jumped back and looked around and saw that iguanas were emerging from the bushes, jumping off the roofs, crawling out from under the sidewalk, and then that all of them were running at us. And they move fast. It was like a scene from Jurassic Park. And by the way, some of these iguanas were giant-sized. Some were well over 2 feet long, and fat. After you got over the shock that they jump at you, they were interesting to watch. They really are unattractive looking animals when they start to molt. It was kind of cool to see so many animals this weekend, but at the same time it wasn’t. We were at a national park, and the only reason we saw so many animals was because they are used to being fed by all the tourists. What a shame.
Hey Gracie,
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to let you know that I am very, VERY jealous that you were able to see these things.
My question is... do Costa Ricans like that they're nation is, dare I say, more of a tourist nation than anything else, at least from the U.S. viewpoint. I mean, Americans tend to not take countries seriously unless they have high exports and the like, and I don't know very much about Costa Rica, but I imagine there exports would be food and possibly textiles, but I am not sure. Also, are they as upset as you were that the animals had been fed by the tourists, or are they generally OK with it? (If you don't know, that's fine with me, I understand).
Hope all is well! Loved our chat yesterday!
Hi Grace! Sounds like you had a great trip! I bet it was interesting to see all the animals!
ReplyDeleteMy question is..
How to the Costa Ricans react to Americans at these parks? I know when I was there they didnt seem to mind that we were so interested in the animals, but from your experience you said you saw so many because they were used to being fed by tourists. How do you think the Costa Ricans react to this? Because wildlife is such a large part of their culture, how do they seem to feel about this? Thanks!
Have a great weekend!
-Rachel
Hi Grace,
ReplyDeleteHope all is well. A curiosity came to mind while I was reading this. Was this a nature preserve? As in, were any of these animals on the endangered species list? Have you seen much dealing with destruction of natural habitats due to logging(illegal or otherwise), or an excess of tourism, or any other reason?
Thanks,
Jeremy
Hi guys! To answer a few of your questions:
ReplyDeleteThe park is a national park, and there were not many regulations about the protection of the environment or the animals (although there were a few signs that said to not feed the animals). I do not know if any of the animals we saw or didn't see are endangered or not. While we were in Tortuguero though, we did see evidence of poaching. Also, when I went snorkling in Playa del Coco, our guide knew absolutely nothing about which species we were looking at. He also touched everything imaginable. He grabbed puffer fish and porcupine fish and made them inflate, and then he would hold them above the water! He also picked up a sea urchin and stuck it to our hands, and he put a sea star in our hands and on our heads. It was really cool to be able to see and touch these things, but doing so was hardly the right thing to do. It actually made me feel rather terrible. So, from what I've seen so far, although the large amount of tourists here aren't exactly helping conservation and preservation efforts in Costa Rica, it seems that a good amount of harm is coming from the Costa Ricans themselves, and only a handful of Costa Ricans are aware of this.