Corcovado National Park - A pleasure for the eye
Once in a while I want to escape my daily life. When I want to break my daily patterns I always visit the skyscanner website to find a ticket for a far destination as cheap as possible. Four months ago I found a ticket from Amsterdam to Costa Rica for only 230 euro (250 usd). It was an offer I couldn't refuse. So I booked this ticket together with a friend and three weeks ago we flew to Costa Rica.
Costa Rica is famous for it's beautiful green landscapes and an extreme biodiversity. When I looked up information about the country I found some information about Corcovado National Park. This park is one of the least touristic national parks of Costa Rica. National Geographic called this park "the most biologically intense place on Earth in terms of biodiversity" . This sounded amazing and we booked a guided tour in Corcovado.
From San Jose we took a local bus for only 13 usd to Puerto Jimenez. The bus drive was only 370 km, but it took us almost 10 hours to get there. When we arrived in Puerto Jimenez we walked to our hostel. It was easy to find, because Puerto Jimenez is a small town. We went to bed early to be fit for 2 days full of hikes in the forest.
The next day we woke up early and we met our guide Hannia. Together we drove to Carate, where our 20 km hike to Sirena station started. The hike started in the secundary forest, where the vast part of the animals are living. Fifty percent of the time we walked on the beach, and fifty percent of the time we walked in the forest. We saw many monkeys, raccoons, macaws and wild boars. The highlight of our first day was seeing a jaguarundi hunting. We also hoped to see a tapir, because there are many tapirs In Corcovado. But unfortunately we did not see one. At the end of the day we arrived at the Sirena station, where we had a good diner. At 8 pm all lights were turned off and we had to go to bed.
The second day we did another trail of 20 km to Los Patos. This trail was mainly in the primary forest. This was a more extreme trail, with the most amazing scenaries you could imagine. During this trail we saw less animals then on the trail of the first day, but the trail was totaly worth it. We also had the opportunity to swim in the middle of the jungle in a river between tuna. That was an experience that will last a lifetime. Tired but satisfied, we arrived at our hostel at the end of the day.
If you love the nature and want to hike in a beautiful forest (without mass tourism) I recommend you to visit Corcovado ;)