Crocodile infested rivers, fire breathing insects, wild pigs, poison dart frogs, four kinds of monkeys, all complete with the mythical jungle-roaming tapir. Welcome to the rugged Corvocado National Park, the Amazon of Costa Rica!
I spent the Costa Rican Mother’s Day long weekend in the National Park with my boyfriend Ricky. Despite some anxiety ridden moments we had a blast and enjoyed the three days of hiking and exploring this gorgeous rain forest reserve. Along with phenomenal seclusion and splendor the park is described by National Geographic as “the most biologically intense place on earth” and is listed in the book A Thousand Places To Go Before You Die!
Saturday we took a three hour collectivo taxi to Carate, an entrance town to the national park and then hiked 20 kilometers on primitive trails, through the jungle and along the Pacific’s coastal beaches towards the Sierna Ranger Station. We spotted many squirrel monkeys, spider monkeys and my personal favourite the white faced capuchin monkeys playing and eating high up in the trees tops. Later we came across a timid anteater, a dove, vultures, and dozens of coati (raccoon-like animals), a herd of peccaries (sharp-toothed wild pigs), bats, tons of scarlet macaws, and last but not least two enchanting tapirs. The tapir is a fascinating, ground dwelling, plant eating creature. The Baird tapir is a mixture of elephant, rhinoceros, pig and horse! There are approximately 200-300 tapirs left in the national park and are hard to find since they rely on concealment as a form of defense. They leave huge, three-toed tracks in the mud and on forest trails throughout the reserve, but after many tracking attempts over the second and third days we could not find any more. I feel privileged to have spotted, if only briefly, the adult and juvenile tapirs crossing the trail and running for cover back into the dense, wild jungle.
Unfortunately, the planned 20 km hike turned into 25 kms due to poorly marked trails and our constant searches for good locations to cross the high rivers. We were warned about high tides that made the rivers impassable because of water levels, crocodile activity and sharks that cruise the inshore waters… Needless to say I was a bit apprehensive. Luckily we crossed at waist-high depths just before the tidal waves flooded the river.
After a wrong turn I accidentally brushed up against a fern swarming with flame throwing ants! Ok, ok, a bit of an exaggeration, but those nasty inferno ants had a mighty, fiery bite that is still lingering three days later!
We lost our way several times but made it to the ranger station just as twilight became night and before the worry of predators, mainly snakes and big cats such as the jaguar, let our imaginations run wild. To top it all off, during a badly needed shower, at the ranger station, I was stung by a vicious wasp. It may seem like a horrible day to some, but I will look back on August 18th, 2007 with fond memories of amazing animal sightings and great adventures.
Needless to say after a 430 am start and an 8 hour day of hiking I was very happy to settle into our bunk house, change into dry clothes and scarf down some pasta salad before falling sound asleep beneath a mosquito-netted canopy.
The next day we went on some easy hikes around the ranger station and along the beach where we saw huge, beautiful trees entangled in thick, maze-like root systems, hundreds of different butterflies, tons of birds, lizards, screeching parrots, monkeys and a cute little agouti, a cat-size rodent related to the guinea pig. The third day we hiked out at a rapid pace through a torrential downpour that lasted the whole 6 hours of our walk. We didn’t spot many animals because of how much the rain obscured our vision, but we had lots of fun singing silly songs about rain, splashing through huge puddles/creeks and having our picnic lunch in a small cave by the raging ocean. What a fantastic, adrenalin charged weekend! Now I am back in my little wooden shack 50 kms from those bio-diverse trails but only 10 km from another entrance to The Corvocado National Park. Guess where I’m going this coming weekend?!