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28 Apr 2002 |
Last week, Karen and I embarked on our most physically challenging adventure
here--trekking through Parque Nacional Corcovado in the Osa Peninsula, in the
southwestern corner of Costa Rica. We left most of our luggage with friends in
Quepos and Cascada Verde, and travelled light--although we were still carrying
tent equipment, clothes, food to last us three days, several bottles of water, cameras,
binoculars, extra footwear, first aid stuff, guide book, etc. so "light" still meant we typically
had 40-50 pounds total stuff to hike around with!
The Osa Peninsula is primarily low rainforest, and has one of the highest concentrations
of untouched wildlife in Costa Rica. Parque Nacional Corcovado covers about one third of the
peninsula, and was set aside by the government in 1976. On the trip out there, we
actually met a guy named Pedro
who was raised in a town that existed before the government bought out everyone's land, so
we got a firsthand account of how the park affected the local area (in general, the landowners
were paid well for their land), along with some stories of the illegal goldpanning that
occurred in the park in the 80s and 90s. Back then, Pedro was one of the "oreros" who
sought his fortune with a portable sluice, until he figured out that he could make a
better living working in the growing tourist industry.
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Day One (Sat, 20 Apr)--After a fortunate day of travel the previous day which put us
in Puerto Jimenez a day ahead of schedule, we got up bright and early to
start adjusting our "body clocks" forward. We
picked up food and water bottles and got information on the park. We
left Puerto Jimenez in a "colectivo", a sturdy pickup truck
outfitted with covered seats in the back that could carry about a dozen people over
the rough road and through shallow rivers to Carate, on the Pacific Coast of the
peninsula (we met Pedro while riding the colectivo). The photo at right was taken during
the 2-hour ride in the colectivo.
After arriving in Carate, we got our first taste of hiking with all our gear
during the short trek to the park entrance, about 2 miles up the beach. We saw
an eagle wandering by the shore on our way, and a group of brilliantly colored
macaws. It's funny, they are a pleasure to watch but not so easy on the ears--their
call is a pretty grating squawk.
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NOTE: On this page, if you click on the photos, it will bring up a larger
version of the photo!
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Day Two (Sun, 21 Apr)--Up with the rising sun at La Leona ranger station.
We hit the beach early and were treated to some beautiful views like the one at
left (our campsite was on a small field just to the left of this photo).
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After a mile or so of beach hiking, the trail turned into the woods, where
we saw our first tapir. It was a bit startling--this huge, brown, pig-like animal (maybe 300 lbs!)
started wandering towards us, exploring the ground with its flexible shout.
We froze. It got to within 30 feet or so, then seemed to catch a whiff of us
and tromped off. I only caught a blurry photo that's hardly worth showing here.
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What is it about the tropics that makes the animals so incredibly colorful?
I wish we had some goot photos of macaws to show, but it's hard to get a
good photo of them since they tend to hang out high up in the trees. Karen was
able to get a good photo of the purple and orange crab at right, though.
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We also had our first of many encounters with spider monkeys on this leg of the trek.
They showed off their acrobatic skills as they made their way to the trees above us.
Once there, they would stare at us, and try to intimidate us by shaking branches and
vines and generally causing a ruckus. Sometimes they'd try to pee on us--Karen narrowly
dodged a drenching once!
In this photo, you can see the monkey on the left using its tail to
hang from the branch. It is strong enough to hang completely by its tail, and
that's with a kid on her back, too! As our friend Jesse once said (on a previous
tour in Quepos): "Monkeys make having a tail look like SO much fun!"
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We also saw dozens of beautiful butterflies, including the shimmering blue Morpho
butterfly. They were pleasant distractions from our increasingly tired legs--after
8 miles or so, we were ready to be there! A lot of the trail was along the beach,
which was beautiful but a lot of work, since the soft sand tends to drag on the feet
and sometimes we would have to pick our way around tricky rocks or piles of driftwood.
It would have been easier to do during low tide, when there is more space to get around
rocky points and hard sand to walk on, but the timing was not right for hiking during low
tide.
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We passed many impressive trees like this one. Karen like to call them "wedding
dress" trees because of the way the roots would sprawl around the base of the
tree. We learned later that many rainforest trees have exploratory roots that
go wide instead of deep, because the topsoil layer is typically very thin.
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We finally reached Sirena with a couple of hours of daylight to spare. We bathed in the
Rio Claro shortly before camp, steering clear of the spot where a guy named Dave had
seen a crocodile shortly before we got there. Even though we had taken plenty of breaks
during the day, we were absolutely exhausted by the time we finished the 10th and last
mile--the weight of our packs and the beach hiking sure took its toll on our bodies!
We turned in blissfully early (around 8:30) and were lucky enough to borrow a nice
soft cushion from the ranger station to put under our tent.
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My attempts at photographing the morpho butterfly: at left, there's one
resting on a leaf. They don't open and close their wings while resting,
like many butterflies do--the only chance of seeing their brilliant blue
backsides is when they are in flight, as you see at right. But it's a little
difficult to get a good focused picture...
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