Corcovado National Park

Today we woke up at 4:00 am to leave at 5 to visit Corcovado National Park. It is billed as the last huge stretch of pacific coastal rainforest in central america, so we hoped it was worth the ridiculous hour. As you might know, 4 am is more likely to be my bed time than wake up time, but its easy to fall asleep early here since the sun sets around 5:30 and there is not a lot to do at night besides have a couple beers and listen to the howler monkeys.

We hopped in the boat and were treated to a nice sunrise en route.

From Sirena

After a boat ride of a little over an hour, we pulled up to the beach to start our hike. Our guide, Carlos, warned us not to swim because of the bull sharks that frequent the area. We strapped on our boots and set to it, hiking for several hours through secondary forest. Apparently this area had families living on it with the forest cleared for pastures, until the government took it back around 1980. So, that means all the trees are only 30 years old maximum. Carlos mentioned that ranchers leave one or two massive trees for shade for the cows, and these 100 plus year old fig trees stuck out like a sore thumb alongside the rest of the smaller (but still big) trees.

From Sirena

We managed to find a Currasow, which is a huge turkey-like bird that walks along the ground and then half jumps half flies into a tree when threatened. The one we found was right in the middle of the path, then flew up in a tree when it saw us.

Carlos stopped to show us a termite mound (hive?), and explained that a teaspoon of them has as much protein as a steak. Of course I had to eat some... They had a minty flavor to them. After arriving at the first ranger station, we went looking for Tapirs, but were unsuccessful in finding any. We found a pack of squirrel monkeys, one with babies on its back, running around in the trees around us. These are pretty endangered, so this was a rare sight. Other monkeys we found included the howler monkey and the spider monkey, although the squirrels were the only ones that were close. We also saw a few pair of scarlet macaws high in the trees (sorry I don't have a nice SLR to get shots of them), along with leaf cutter ants and a variety of birds.

From Sirena

En route to the next ranger station, Carlos just jumped in the water when the boat slowed down. Not to be shown up by his display, I tossed off my shirt and hopped in after him. We swam under a small natural bridge and saw some Boobies (the birds) nesting in the side of the cliff.

From Sirena

Our second stop was another ranger station which our host Juan described as being "for old people". I guess this means its more accessible and less strenuous hiking. Right on the beach there was an anteater sleeping in a tree, which was pretty cool.

From Sirena

Carlos took us down some trails to a small waterfall you could swim in, and although it was packed with tourists, we didn't care. On a side note, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a german tourist anywhere we have ever been, and this holds true even here.

After swimming we headed back on the boat and ate lunch on the way to Drake. We were lucky enough to have some dolphins swim beside our boat, and somehow I snagged a (blurry) photo of one popping its head out of the water.

From Sirena

Once again, our host Juan was waiting with ice cold beers and inviting hammocks, just what we needed after a long day full of hiking.

Tomorrow I will post some more pictures of our room at Finca Maresia, since its basically the nicest place either of us have ever stayed, by far.

Here are the rest of the photos from today.