MANZANILLO BEACH - Bet all you guys in ON feel warmer just looking at this pic!
Just spent last Tuesday and Wednesday night at La Kukula Eco Lodge, in between Puerto Viejo & Manzanillo on the south east side of Costa Rica. Found it on trip advisor and it lived up to all its positive reviews.
It’s in the middle of the jungle which is one of the things that appealed to us and it was within walking distance to Playa Chiquita, just across the road. On the property we saw howler monkeys and white faced monkeys and even a little bit of a monkey war. The owners of the lodge, Sonia & Pepo (great hosts) told us that the howlers are there year round but the white faced monkeys only show up in February. There’s some fruit on 2 trees (that no one, including their gardener seems to knows what it is) that the monkeys come for and the white faced ones bully the howlers away. We saw that happen when both kinds were in the same tree...poor howlers!
They don’t like people watching them either! One morning we were watching them eat the berries in the tree near our room and one of the bigger white faced males (I’m guessing) intentionally broke off a fair sized branch and tried to throw it at us. I’m not kidding! It got stuck in another branch and he tried to throw it again but it was too big for him to handle. Little bugger!
Also saw numerous sloths, birds, butterflies and a couple of agouti (bigger than gineau pig, smaller than a rabbit)
“Playa Chiquita” is a small, quiet white sand beach, accessible only on foot, right across the road from the lodge. Nice spot to relax but you have to be careful of the rocks in the water when it’s rough.
About a 15 minute walk south from there is the famous for snorkeling, Punta Uva beach, and I have to say, that while it is a pretty, it’s not the nicest beach we saw there. But I get why it’s a great snorkel spot because there are no rocks close to shore and the reef isn’t that far out. Water was choppy the day we went there so we didn’t bother trying to snorkel, played in the waves instead.
We walked another 40 minutes or so and came across a much bigger, sandier beach that doesn’t seem to be called anything special but it was gorgeous! Found a hotel right on that beach that we’re going back to next week for a few more days of warm water and sun therapy!
The beach in Manzanillo is also pretty nice, hung out there for an afternoon. Maxi’s restaurant there has the best typical Costa Rican food we’ve ever had. Came highly recommended by one of the locals that we met on the 3 crosses hike a few days ago.
So we pretty much just enjoyed the heat, humidity and the beach for 2 days. The wildlife watching at the lodge was a bonus but then we got some up close and personal interactions with the local residents at the nearby Jaguar wildlife rescue centre. I’ll let my pictures do the talking about it....so glad there’s people like this to care for hurt and abandoned animals and then release them back into the wild. This tour has been the highlight of this trip so far for me....I’d volunteer at this place in a heartbeat if we were here for longer.