Mike in the Wild

I had thought that Manuel Antonio National Park only allowed six hundred visitors to enter daily. While eating an early breakfast on my hotel restaurant's patio in Quepos, I could see a line of people waiting to enter through the park's gate shortly after the seven o'clock opening time.  I queued for almost ten minutes when I was admitted closer to nine o'clock, the time I had reserved two weeks before through the preserve's on-line ticketing portal.  Crowds were a new phenomenon during my mid-winter Costa Rica trip.  Why was Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica's smallest national park, also its busiest?   In Arenal Volcano National Park, I had stayed at the only hotel situated immediately in the park.  My impression was the hotel wasn't full and even day visitors were scarce.  When I visited Monteverde Cloud Forest on the next leg of my trip, a lot of people were entering the park at 11:30 a.m. when I joined my guided tour.  But there wasn't any wait to p...