More on Manuel Antonio

I realize that my post the other day on the Manuel Antonio trip is somewhat discombobulated. I think in trying to recap the travel as well as the issues at the park, I may have tried to bite off more than I can chew in one post. So here, if you're interested, is my story recapping the current situation at the park:

Manuel Antonio National Park will stay open, for now.

Local businesses and tourism outlets breathed a sigh of relief Friday after Health Minister María Luisa Avila gave the Environment, Energy and Telecommunications Ministry (MINAET) a four-month extension to resolve the park's longtime sewage contamination problems.

Avila announced the decision after touring Manuel Antonio Friday with officials from MINAET and the Costa Rican Water and Sewer Institute (AyA). The Health Ministry had given MINAET until Thursday to correct the problems at the park, which included mosquito-breeding standing water, a garbage dump on site and sewage leaks from the bathrooms near the park's most popular beach.

While park administrators had resolved the first two issues last week, MINAET and local business leaders sought an extension to resolve the sanitation problems, which they said could not be solved before the Health Ministry's 10-day deadline. According to a statement by MINAET, portable bathrooms will be installed for tourists while construction begins on new, permanent bathrooms and a sewage treatment facility for the park.

Greasing the wheels will be ¢120 million (about $214,000) from the Costa Rica Tourism Institute (ICT), half of which will fund the sewage treatment plant, while the rest will be earmarked for infrastructure improvements, including new buildings to house park rangers.

Between 1,000 and 2,000 tourists attend the park every day, generating over ¢1 billion (nearly $1.8 million) last year in revenue. That money is put into a general fund and split among the country's national parks, however, leaving meager resources for the country's second-most visited park, park administrators said.

Richard Lemire, president of the Aguirre Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, expressed gratitude for ICT's assistance and the Health Ministry's understanding, but warned that park operations must not return to business as usual.

“Obviously, that won't be enough,” Lemire said of the ICT funding. “We're still very concerned with the basic administration of MINAET.”

For its part, MINAET said it is conducting an internal investigation to determine how conditions have deteriorated so badly at Manuel Antonio, and how funds appropriated for the park are being used.

While a happy ending, especially for those hoping to visit the park in the coming weeks, it's far from the end of the story. Needless to say I'll be keeping an eye on whether the government actually follows through and cleans up its act.

Going going, back back to Manuel Antonio

One of the best things about being here for a few months is the ability to return to places I've already been in order to catch something I may have missed the first time. In the case of Manuel Antonio, that something was only the main reason most people go there: Manuel Antonio National Park, the 2nd most visited national park in the whole country, and the home of some of Costa Rica's most beautiful beaches.

Those beaches, however, just lost their Blue Flag status, which is nationwide recognition for eco-friendliness, because of the risk of sewage contamination (for more, see my article in The Tico Times earlier this week here).

You see, my weekend at the beach wasn't all fun in the sun (although there was plenty of that). I had four stories to write--a hotel review, feature on a local gift shop that opened a bar & grill, and a piece on a new clinic to rehab injured jungle animals, and, last but not least, a report on the sanitary issues at the national park. That may sound like a lot to handle in two and a half days, but things surprisingly worked out well.

I knew we were set for a good weekend when Avalon and I got out of the house late on Friday, had the slowest taxi driver known to man, and showed up 5 minutes late for our noon bus to Manuel Antonio. Running to the bus station from the curb (Avalon, you may be surprised to hear, is actually quite fast when need be) we managed to get on just in time. Sometimes, Tico Time (or the fact that most things here run late) is just what you need.

Yesterday, the country's health minister visited Manuel Antonio to check on the progress the park had made in cleaning up its act. There was a reasonable chance she would order the park closed--meaning I would have been there the last weekend possible--because of the sewage leaks from the bathrooms, a problem that is endemic to the entire park system and has existed for years.

Luckily, she agreed to give the park a few more months to come up with a long-term solution Hopefully, the specter of a closed-down Manuel Antonio will scare the environmental industry, as well as local businesses, into action. Closing the park would have been a huge blow to the local economy, but the country can't afford to neglect its environmental gems anymore.


And, on that somber note, I'll leave you with some more pictures of the beach and the park. Including monkeys, which lost a little bit of their luster when I realized how tame they had become in order to try to steal food from people. When some French tourists started feeding them, ignoring the orders of the park ranger, I had to get out of there.

Unfortunately, this sign was ignored:

Cuatro mil palabras (Four thousand words)

Due, to popular demand, I've decided to post about our trip last weekend. Since it was our first weekend outside of San Jose, we decided to make a simple 2.5-hour trip to the beach down by Manuel Antonio on the Pacific Coast. As we pretty much just hung out by the ocean all day, I figured some pictures would tell the story better than words. You know how the saying goes... enjoy.


This was the view from our spot on the sand

This was our hostel, Hostal Buena Vista, meaning "good view." An apt name, considering the following picture, taken from this balcony...


For more on our trip, check out Avalon's post on it here. She's got a good one (with pitures) on our apartment/house/villa here. Hasta luego!