Costa Rica Diary - First Wildlife Experience

Hey guys, today's post is a really fun and special one for me because it's about wildlife and about my first experience photographing animals.
 After two days in Puerto Viejo and Manzanillo my boyfriend and I decided to stop in Cahuita for a day, which is also on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and just half an hour away from where we spent our first days. Cahuita is a really small village - two supermarkets, a few restaurants, bars and hostels or 'cabinas'. BUT it has an amazing national park where you can see loads of funny animals and also sligthly intimidating ones like yellow vipers. You can walk the entire park by yourself or book a guide who will look for animals for you. We had such a marvelous day exploring Costa Rica's wildlife. Right at the beginning of the park we met some really cute capuchin monkeys and also howler monkeys with their babies. We also ran into lots of different snakes, huge spiders, colorful crabs and our first sloth! The tour was just amazing, the path goes through the jungle and is right next to a beautiful wild beach. Fortunately we didn't meet a lot of tourists so we had the paradisiacal park just for ourselves.
It was also the first time for me that I saw some wild monkeys and other animals in their natural habitat without being separated from them by a fence or window. It was such a wonderful experience and I really loved seeing the free animals play, jump and eat. I also really enjoyed taking photos of them with my 300mm zoom lens, the pics came out just fantastic, don't you think so? ;-)

And this was our cozy 'home' in Cahuita, Cabinas Palmer.

Costa Rica Diary - The tropical Beach

Hey there, hope you all had a fantastic weekend! Mine was pretty relaxed, I stayed with my parents for a few days and really enjoyed being home. We had a big family BBQ, went to see 'The Revenant' at the movies (very recommendable), and had some long talks about my trip to Costa Rica and more family stuff. I just got back to my apartment today, university is calling, I can't be forever on vacation, haha!
So tonight's post is about a beautiful tropical beach in Manzanillo. We took a trip down there during our stay in Puerto Viejo, so it was the second stop of our Costa Rica trip.
We took a bus in the afternoon from Puerto Viejo to Manzanillo, it was a quick 30 minute ride, and we were simply amazed when we got there! Palm trees as far as the eye can see and right on the beach, coconuts and crystal clear natural pools. And very few tourists, we had the entire beach just for ourselves - a love birds' paradise!
We took a long walk down the beach because we wanted to explore the area a little. So we didn't really get to swim but had the chance to discover many beautiful places such as the Mirador Gandoca Manzanillo, a big rock from where you can see the vast coast. I could have stayed there forever to watch the wild waves hit the rocky beach. Nature in its pure, raw beauty!
On the way back we stopped to lay down and chill for a while until some beach bugs got us and stung me like a million times, so we had to leave our romantic spot, haha. Anyway, we got to watch a beautiful sunset and some kids playing soccer at the beach. I loved the tranquility and peace of this moment. Just me and my boyfriend, the golden sun and happily laughing kids - another perfect day in Costa Rica <3