Corcovado: Costa Rica’s last wild frontier?
Our next stop in Costa Rica was the biggy – Corcovado National Park. Located on the Osa Peninsula, on the south west coast, this region is a biodiversity hotspot, it’s the most biodiverse place in central America, not just Costa Rica.
It’s a lowland rainforest, think hot steamy jungle, with brown muddy rivers, crocodiles, sloths, anteaters, countless birds and even pumas and jaguars….
I’d wanted to come to this region for a very long time, following my childhood dream of one day seeing a jaguar in the wild, probably my favourite big cat. As it’s supposed to be one of the best places in the world to see pumas and jaguars in the wild. Although it’s still incredibly unlikely…
However, the region is remote and underdeveloped – exactly why it’s so good for wildlife! So getting here was going to be an adventure in itself…
From the high mountains of San Gerado we had to get the same bus again down towards the town of Palmar Norte first. But remember my last post, I said that the ATMs weren’t working at the bus station…. Well… We had about 10,000 in cash left, and the bus was probably more.
As a back-up option, we’d booked another bus online, but this one would only take us as far as the nearest big town – San Isidro. From there we’d need 2 more buses. We just hoped the direct one with Tracopa, first of all, turned up, second, stopped (we’re at a tiny unofficial stop) and three, let us on with not enough money to pay the fare… 😂🤞🏻
We got to the bus stop just before 9am, the bus was supposed to be 9:35am, but after just 5 minutes of waiting, a Tracopa bus passed us… But it didn’t stop…(!) Was it the right one? Had we missed it? Why was it early? We both got a bit stressed and weren’t sure what to do… But we needn’t have worried, as at almost exactly 9:35am another Tracopa bus passed and DID stop for us! PHEW!
We told the driver in broken Spanish that we were going to Palmar Norte and currently didn’t have enough cash for a ticket. But we could withdraw some along the way or pay by card. He understood and let us on with no issues whatsoever! What a guy! We were now on a direct bus to Palmar Norte, no stress, perfect!
The journey took about 5 hours in total, and at one bit of the route the bus goes off the main road into a town called Buenos Aires (not the Argentinian one!), then turns around in the town and comes back to continue along the highway. It was here that the driver stopped to let me out at an ATM. I got cash and by the time I was all sorted the bus had turned around in town and was on the way back to me. Seamless ☺️
We arrived in Palmar Norte, and from here we had to get a taxi to the town of Sierpe. About 30 minutes away.
Then from Sierpe, we got a 2 hour boat through the mangroves of the Sierpe river and then joined the Pacific ocean where we followed the coastline to Drake Bay.
This boat ride was amazing, if not slightly terrifying! The mangrove region was stunning, the river was flanked by lush green forest with rolling hills covered in cloud behing, and you could see monkeys and toucans in the trees, as well as crocodiles in the river! But as we reached the confluence region with the ocean, the waves were breaking against the shallow river and they were BIG waves. The driver went from chatting and messing on his phone, to ultimate concentration. And all the passengers were side-eyeing each other like… Is this normal?
It was pretty scary actually, people were screaming and ahhing, nervous laughter filled the boat and everyone held on tightly as we navigated the waves. Once we were through the breakers, the waves got BIGGER, but this was actually better as they were wider barrels so it was easier to ride over them.
We eventually arrived at Drake Bay, which was quite calm relatively, but we still had a wet landing on the beach into thigh deep water. We definitely felt remote!
And we STILL weren’t in Corcovado! Haha. Drake Bay is known as being one of the best places to stay to access Corcovado on a day trip. So for now, we were just outside the park.
We’d booked a little apartment back away from the beach and the owner was waiting to meet us when we arrived. He took us in a 4×4 golf buggy up the steep hill to the apartment.
We loved staying here, it had everything we needed to cook good meals, had AC in the bedroom, but the best thing was the private balcony looking over the gardens. Every day we saw toucans, Aracaris, chachalacas (forest chickens), hummingbirds, countless tanagers, parrots and the amazing scarlet macaws. There was also a pair of agoutis which foraged on the ground we saw most days too, and several iguanas in the trees. It was amazing.
On our first day here we got up early to have coffee on the balcony and watch the animals, before walking down to the beach and the along the coastal walk here. We walked for a few hours and got as far as Playa Cocolito, where we saw a troop of white faced capuchin monkeys and tonnes of scarlet macaws really close! We considered continuing further, but it’s so hot and humid here, we were both completely soaked with sweat and already out of water trying to stay hydrated. So we turned back.
Just at the right time it seemed too, as by the time we made it back to Drake Bay, the afternoon rains were just starting. It rained every afternoon here, usually starting about 2pm.
The next day was our Corcovado day! We were heading to Sirena station which appears to be the most remote and central ranger station in the park, and where I’d heard people often see pumas… We had our fingers crossed!
To get here we had to get in a boat… again – Dave was not happy haha, but the waves weren’t as bad this time. It took 2 hours in a boat along the coast until we reached Sirena beach and another wet landing and short hike to the entrance.
It was MUCH busier than I had imagined given the remoteness of it, and there must have been 100 people around the entrance when we arrived, maybe more. It’s mandatory to have a guide here, and although the groups are technically small, we all seemed to go the same way, so it felt so busy.
We also felt quite rushed with every sighting, our guide would say, “right has everyone got a picture? Let’s go then”. Like snapping a pic was the only reason we were here… And it genuinely seemed to be the case actually… At least in our group…
Dave and I wanted to watch the animals and enjoy the experience, taking our time and respecting nature, but we were rushed from sighting to sighting, ticking off the animals, but not getting chance to savour the experience… And our guide even shouted at us a few times for falling behind…(!)
To say I was disappointed in the experience is a massive understatement… It ended up not at all being the remote, wilderness park I’d hoped for. 😔
Still, we did get to see a lot, including spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys, crocodiles, terrapins, a black-headed antpitta (quite a rare and shy bird), a tamandua (an anteater basically – and the main animal I’d hoped to (realistically) see today), a pair a Tapirs sleeping (a mum and baby), lots of black throated trogons, some great curassows, and a common potoo too (which was unexpected, and a bird I’d wanted to see for a long time!), lots of agoutis and a huge family troop of coatis. It was great, just rushed, busy and not really feeling like a real wildlife experience, more of a tick-box exercise in seeing animals… What a shame.
We also learned that Sirena station is not even a primary forest, and is actually what used to be a small settlement and town, with it’s own airstrip (where the station actually is) and schools and everything. All since reclaimed by the trees after it was declared a national park. We even saw a few old remnants of life here…
We had our lunch in the busy station, which was full of people, then headed back to the boat and started the long journey back to Drake bay.
The following day we had planned to go out on a snorkelling trip to Caño Island, about another 2 hour boat ride from Drake Bay (sorry Dave). I’d read the island could be hit and miss, as if visibility is good, it’s one of the best visibilities in the world, and you can see many sharks, turtles and even pelagic species. However if the visibility is bad, it’s really bad… We had EVERYTHING crossed for good… 🤞🏻
On the way to the island we saw several pods of tropical spotted dolphins they came right over and played with the boat, and were jumping out, so cool!
We arrived at the island and the dolphins were still near, the guide jumped in quick and I followed him quickly but we didn’t see them whilst we were snorkeling. In fact we didn’t see much, sadly it was a bad visibility day and we could only see a few metres. 😔 It always looks better on the GoPro pictures, but with our eyes, it was terrible, and we only really saw what swam close to us.
We saw quite a lot of turtles though, both loggerheads and green turtles, and a few yellow pufferfish (we could only really see the bright coloured fish!) but in this visibility and sharks would have been too well camouflaged, especially the white tip and black tip reef sharks, there’s no way we’d have been spotting them.
We tried a few other spots but they were all the same. So instead we went to the island and chilled on the beach a little, picking and cracking open our own coconuts and enjoying feeding the baby basilisk lizards with the leftover pineapple cores.
After the break we tried the water again and it was a bit better but barely… So we decided to call it a day. The guide and boat captain offered to take us to Playa Josecito instead, apparently the most beautiful beach in the region, so we all agreed and drove over to there instead. We enjoyed playing in the calm water and watching the macaws in the trees. It was a lovely beach, then we headed back around 2pm and landed back at Drake just before the afternoon rains started. Perfect timing!
We had supposed to be leaving the next day, but we decided that we loved this place too much and extended a night. The town here was small and local, and everyone seemed to know each other. We were settling into a routine, even after just 5 days, getting up early and watching the animals on the balcony, cooking our own breakfast then heading out in the day, back around 2-3pm when the rain started to cook a lunch/dinner/tea/all-in-one meal around 4-5pm whilst we watched the rains and the birds at dusk, then early bed in the dark! Haha.
So on our next extra day we just chilled on the balcony most of the day, enjoying the birds and agoutis, we walked down to the beach one last time, and had a nice lunch at a restaurant with a view of the bay.
Then in the evening we did a night walk into the forests behind the town. It was pretty spooky actually compared to the one we did around Rio Celeste. We were given rubber boots and we walked along and in the river, which (due to all the recent rain) was higher than our boots, so we got very wet feet!
We saw a lot of frogs, mostly poisonous ones and loads of stick insects and spiders, including the water spiders which walk on water. We also saw a few birds, fast asleep, including a kingfisher and a little Manakin, all puffed up and hiding from the rain. We also saw a small snake which mimics the venomous fer de lance, but is safe, and right at the end we saw a highly venomous black tarantula…
I had a shower as soon as we got back 😂
We loved this part of Costa Rica. Yes it was hot, yes it was super humid, yes it rained everyday, yes there were a lot of bugs and insects and poisonous snakes and spiders, but we loved every second of it despite all this. There is so much nature and life here, and mad coloured birds and animals, dolphins, fish, everything. And you don’t have to go all the way to Sirena station to see it. This is Costa Rica at its finest.
Plus the people in Costa Rica, no matter where we’ve been, we’ve received so much warmth and hospitality. The owners drove us to the boat every time and asked for nothing, even when we tried to pay him. They did our laundry for free, told us about all the animals, and restocked the feeder outside our room with bananas every day.
We are so sad to leave Costa Rica actually, it’s been our favourite country so far in this trip. Everyone was super friendly, it felt really safe and easy to travel around, buses were comfortable and cheap, and easy to find the schedules of. And the scenery and wildlife was on another level. The country is just STUNNING, and we only just scratched the surface. We will definitely return one day.
