Yeah!! We are back in Costa Rica the holiday location that we always name as the best place we have ever visited. Lets hope it lives up to our very high expectations. We will be exploring for the next 4 weeks, mostly by hire car and sometimes by boat. This is the most biologically diverse places on earth so hopefully lots of wildlife to see.
Drake bay & Corcavado National Park
First stop the best national park in Costa Rica, Corcavado. This is a remote park in the south east and can only be reached by boat or plane. To break up our journey we stayed over at a lovely hotel in the village of Ojochal before catching the boat at Sierpe the morning after. The boat journey starts on a river through the mangroves before breaking out into the Pacific ocean. This was a bit hair raising as the captain had to zig-zag through big waves at the mouth of the river. Arrived at Drake Bay and had to get off the boat onto the beach, again a bit hair raising with the waves and all your luggage!! Drake Bay is one of the main access points for Corcavado and is situated on a beautiful jungle fringed beach with very little development.
First night stayed in Drake Bay and went on a night tour. This was amazing, loads of different frogs including beautifully coloured poison dart frogs, see-through glass frogs and large bull frogs. Also saw lots of large insects and spiders including tarantulas. Where's there's food there's prey, which was my least favourite creature, a snake. It was actually an amazingly snake and I quite liked it as it was very thin and nearly cute. Although it was trying to eat my favourites creatures, frogs!! Early to bed tonight as up at 5am tomorrow morning. Everything starts early here, as soon as the sun is up the wildlife wakes up and so do the Ticos (Costa Rican people).
Caught the boat at 6am on the beach to get to Corcavdo National Park. For the next 2 days we had a guide with us and we stayed overnight at the rangers lodge in the jungle. This was wildlife heaven!! It is like walking through a zoo there is so much to see. Just a short list of the wildlife we saw, Scarlet Macaws, Mealy Parrots, King Vultures, different types of humming birds, a variety of hawks, lots of very colourful small birds, blue morpho butterflies as big as your hand, lots of other colourful butterflies, 3 different types of monkey, a sloth, 3 Bairds Tapir, Coatis, Agoutis, Igunas, Caiman, Peccaries, an Anteater and as always a snake!! Truly amazing, Costa Rica has already surpassed expectations.
Spent the night in an open sided dormitory in bunk beds with mosquito nets round. It was like sleeping outside, you could see the stars and fireflies from your bed. Lights out and everyone in bed at 8pm. Up at 4.30am the following morning for a dawn walk!! Stayed in the park until lunch time and then caught the boat back to Drakes Bay. The journey back was an absolute white knuckle ride. We were only in a small boat launched from the beach and the waves were huge! The captain drove out through the waves passed the breakers and then rode along the top of the massive waves parallel with the shore, I have never seen anything like it. When we got off the boat our guide said even he was afraid and he does this every day!! The only thing to do was to go for a beer to calm our nerves. Our fantastic guide joined us and it turned into a mini session and the guide got in trouble from his girlfriend for being late and a bit drunk!! Mark's bad influence travels around the world! A relative lie in the next morning, up at 6am and boat at 7am. Nice calm peaceful back to Sierpe where our car was parked and onto the next destination.
Matapalo Beach
About an hours north of Sierpe we stayed on the beach at Matapalo. Couple of days chilling on the beautiful beach and exploring the most popular national park Antonio Manuel. Great walks and beaches in the national park. Saw some wildlife but not as much as at Corcavado but this is a relatively busy national park so wouldn't expect as much wildlife. Weather so far, so hot! It is about 30C and 100% humidity. It has been fine mostly all day with a heavy down pour at about 4pm most days. Eaten lots of rice and beans so far as it is typically served at breakfast, lunch and dinner!! All food has been great, lots of fish as well as rice and beans!
