CORCOVADO NATIONAL PARK, Puntarenas — Oops, I did it again. For the third time, with friends from the U.S. looking for the consummate Costa Rica experience, I lured them to Drake Bay for a boat trip to Corcovado National Park.
And once again, Corcovado lived up to its reputation as the wildest place in Costa Rica you can visit without bushwhacking through La Amistad International Peace Park in the southeast with a machete. The profusion of species we saw with our guide, Manuel Carranza, reminded me of Tarzan’s jungle, and then someone mentioned “The Jungle Book,” which also seemed appropriate.
We saw three of Costa Rica’s four species of monkeys (spider, squirrel and howler); not one but three tapirs, the country’s largest mammal besides whales; some fruit bats, the country’s most abundant mammal; a couple of three-toed sloths; an agouti; an anteater; a highly venomous snake, an eyelash pit viper; a highly venemous arachnid, the Brazilian wandering spider; a crocodile and some baby caimans; and of course lots of birds, including toucans, trogons and crested guans.
(Later, in town, we saw a bunch of white-faced monkeys, for the quadrifecta, and even a skunk, which luckily ignored us.)
I’ve always driven to Drake, which can be a bit harrowing, but this time I parked my car in Sierpe for $6 a day and took the boat down the Sierpe River for $20. My friends and I stayed at the superb but pricy Aguila de Osa and the adequate but more affordable Jinetes de Osa.
