Nature Verdant

For people all over the world, Costa Rica’s famed natural beauty is the stuff of travelling dreams. Europeans seem especially enamoured of Costa Rica’s attractions and when by trail or street one passes another tourist it is folly to assume that English will be their natural tongue.  

As we write this post, we have ranged as far south as Bahia Drake and are now returned to Playas del Coco, waiting for a good weather window to transit the Nicaraguan coast back towards Bahia del Sol in El Salvador.  The shore vegetation here in the north of Costa Rica is dry.  Last night, driven by strong northerly winds there was a raging brush fire that glowed fearsome orange up the southern banks of the bay’s hills. But during our southward journey the forests slowly changed to lush greenery, accented in the myriad shades of blooming tree flowers.

Along the way we saw and heard many a monkey. Howler monkeys make themselves loudly known whether you can see them or not.  Their grunts and roars are easily heard at anchor, far from their tree-top lounge chairs where they laze away their days.  Spider monkeys are not noisy but use their long limbs to range energetically through the forests above in search of food.  Don’t stand beneath them: you may get wet or worse!  Tiny little squirrel monkeys do the same but are the more endangered and you need to be luckier to get a sighting. Capuchin white-faced monkeys are often seen ranging on the forest floor.  They are clever and are known for their thievery, encouraged by stupid tourists who have previously succumbed to the temptation to feed them.

At Punta Quepos the vibe was like a mini Wreck Beach, but without the nudity.  From the street above there is a steep trail down to the beach, where vendors sell beer and drinks and delicious food is on offer.  Umbrellas are available to rent and Costa Ricans and tourists show up in equal numbers to enjoy lazy days spent on the beach.  Our access was by dinghy, but we trekked up the hill to enjoy the luxury of a meal pool-side and then a small provisioning run at the nearby neighborhood commercial area.  The curvy road from beach to town sweeps past many swish looking vacation villas that have been built into the steep hillsides overlooking the sea.  At night everyone goes home from the beach, leaving cruisers all alone at anchor to listen to a private concert of cicadas and monkeys.

Beautiful anchorage at the 'Wreck Beach' (clothing required) of Punta Quepos.

Around the corner is the Manuel Antonio Park.  Anchored there we took our dinghy and enjoyed the trails to ourselves before the hordes of tourists began being admitted at 8am.  Coatis and agoutis and bats were about, along with monkeys and sloths that we couldn’t see, hidden high up in the foliage.  Apparently, the sloths come from aloft once every 8 days to take a dump in the roots of their tree, then climb back up.  Why they do this is unknown and especially puzzling because predators such as puma and jaguar are known to take advantage of their moment of slothful ablution.

What happens when a tricky dingy surf landing tangles with the line of a parasailer?

Quiet reflection after a violent pitch into the sea.   Luckily, the dingy stayed upright even if Alice and Greg did not.

Uvita was a stop on the way to Drake Bay.  An unpleasant night was spent rolling and bouncing at anchor there.  At low tide the reef absorbs the swells but woe betides the high – then the swell rolls in over the reef and makes life miserable.  If you want to have a really lousy memory of a place all that is required is to combine a lumpy anchorage with a valve accident that emptied our full water tanks into the sea and then air-locked the water maker needed to refill them. Sweaty hours below were required to set things right.

Greg has bad memories of Uvita, but the stunning sunset and rising moon are Alice's fond memories.

Bahia Drake was a highlight reel of nature’s beauty.  Not being ourselves much in the way of naturalists, we chose to enjoy the experience assisted by tour guides for both water and land. First was a dive/snorkeling trip by boat to Isla del Cano.  Greg’s two dives at the island were simply spectacular displays of underwater life.  Huge schools of jacks, big and small, swirled in circles that envelope you swimming gracefully inches from your body and including you in their fantastic flying formations. On underwater rock spires that rise from a sandy bottom, moray eels lurked, lobsters hid in crevices, eagle rays glided by and white-tipped and bull sharks lingered on the sea-floor.  Tuna fish ripped above at high speed while stingrays nestled hidden in the sand below, their eyes and nostrils and the faint outlines of their bodies giving away their secret locations. It was a profusion of sea life. Triggerfish and grunts and snappers.  Wrasse, damselfish and parrotfish.  Boxfish, puffers and porcupinefish.  Lace coral and hawkfish.  Wow.

Snorkeling and dive trip to Isla del Cano.

The next day we went on a trip to Corcovado National Park, sleeping overnight in a tent at ranger station San Pedrillo.  We roared at 26 knots to our park landing beach near Sirena Ranger Station, stopping on the way to watch a very large school of mobular rays leaping up and splatting down by hundreds in a rhythmic visual symphony.

Spotting the wildlife thanks to Donny, our expert guide.

Overnight camping at San Pedrillo Ranger Station in Corcovado Park.

The young panga drivers were skilled at managing the gringos in and out of the tour boat.

Our guide Donny was of aboriginal descent and besides being friendly and fun to be around, he carried an encyclopedic knowledge of all things forest living.  The trip was in its way a repeat for Alice, as eight years previously she had hiked in 20km from the Golfito side of the park.  She had then flown out on a small plane from the grass strip at Sirena.  It turns out that a high accident rate has now closed that runway.  Small plane wreckage can be seen in 5 places around the strip, causing Greg to be impressed anew by his esposa intrépida.

The abandoned landing strip.

The profusion of life at sea was matched by that of the land.  Of plants and trees there was a jungle.  Of animals were numerous monkeys but also tapirs (similar to a pig), sloths curled up high in trees, agouti (like really weird looking rabbits), coatis (long nosed raccoons), and squirrels.  Of birds there were scarlet macaws, toucans, and other small birds of many colour (technical term for birds whose names we didn’t catch).  There were black hawks, falcons, turkey vultures, cormorants, egrets, herons, sandpipers and plovers, gulls and terns and grouse.  Lizards were many, small and large and there were dart frogs (toxic to touch and previously used by aboriginals to poison their weapon tips).  And insects: huge spiders with elaborate 3-dimensional webs capable of catching small birds, swarming wasps and bees and ants and termites and nasty tiny little ticks (perhaps the least favourite of all insects), along with the usual assortment of mosquitos and biting sand fleas to remind us that we humans can also be prey. 

Donny once killed one of these wasps, leaving the pheromone on his skin.    The entire hive chased him for miles (well maybe not miles)!

Invisible to us but roaming the jungle were huge jaguars and their smaller puma and ocelot cousins.  Snakes were few this time of year, for which in a way we were glad, though we would have loved to see a boa constrictor hanging from a tree.  Greg went for a cooling swim in the ocean and then was told it was a bad idea – crocodiles often range there out of the estuary.  Oops.  

Adding to the visual pleasures of a trek through exotic trails were other human animals.  We were accompanied on our explorations by a stunningly beautiful and smart-minded young 20ish Danish couple, living embodiments of blonde god and goddess.  They were youth in love and adventuring the world together.  Lucky them; lucky us: all alive in nature’s jungle.

The young Danish couple shelling coconuts.

Greg & Alice