Trip Details
Date: June 6th, 2015
Total Distance: 9.11 mi (via Trimble Outdoors Navigator Pro on iPhone 4S)
Total Time: 4 hours 45 minutes
Total Elevation: 2749 ft gained
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After a quick evening in San José (dirty and insanely crowded city, avoid it if possible and fly into Liberia), we made the short flight to Drake Bay on the Osa Peninsula. We stayed at the amazing Aquila de Osa Inn. One of our tours was a trip into Corcovado National Park from the San Pedrillo Ranger Station.
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| A crocodile out for an early morning swim. This photo was taken from the dining area of our inn. It tried to eat Cupcake later in the day while we were kayaking in the cove. |
National Geographic is frequently quoted about this park because they labeled it, "the most biologically intense place on Earth in terms of biodiversity." In our short time on the trails we saw numerous wildlife and fauna while we explored the secondary rainforest and even a brief few minutes in a section of the primary rainforest. The trails are mostly good footing, but at times we had to climb out steep wet clay that was pretty slippery. Below the topsoil is mostly clay in this part of the world.
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| A coati (or coatimundi) is in the tree, but it is hard to find behind the leaves. |
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| The river we had to cross to get to the trail. This is where it feeds into the ocean. |
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| "Porgy River Trail" Porgy is a type of fish. |
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| "Porgy River" We followed the trail to the river's mouth. |
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| A large Ficus tree. |
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| The Ficus' roots are all above ground as the nutrients in the soil are at the top, which is the opposite to our soil in the northeast. |
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| A termite nest. You could see these everywhere in the rainforest. We never got a chance to try and eat some. |
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| "Stay on the trail" is the literal translation. Our guide, Carlos would take us on a few bushwhacks while hiking. The best one was immediately after one of these signs... |
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| Gecarcinus quadratus or the red land crab. |
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| A basilisks or more commonly known as the Jesus Christ Lizard. We never got to see one walk on water. |
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| A banyan tree. |
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| A recently fallen tree. The interesting thing is the lack of a giant hole that you would see back home, but since the roots are all above ground the tree does not really disturb the ground when it falls. |
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| A male great curassow. These are on the "vulnerable" list for threatened species. |
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| Black vultures |
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| Ficus aurea or the strangler fig. |
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| A male mantled howler monkey. You do not need an alarm clock in the rainforest when these monkeys are around. |
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| A mother and baby white-headed capuchin monkeys. |
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| Another white-headed capuchin monkey jumping through the trees. |
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| Northern tamandua |
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| The mouth of the Porgy River. |
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| "San Pedrillo Station" |
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| "Up Porgy River" The trail leads further upriver. |
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| The stilt roots of a Socratea exorrhiza or walking palm tree. |
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| A couple of Geoffroy's Spider Monkeys. We did a serious bushwhack to get to them as they were making noise up in the primary rainforest but were not visible from the trail. Our guide said they made this noise because a predator was on the ground nearby (not us, most likely a jaguar). When we got to the area, though, the predator was gone. The spider monkeys proceeded to throw some stuff at us though. |
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| Leafcutter ants are everywhere in Costa Rica. |
After the hike we made our way on a short spur trail to a waterfall and swimming hole.
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| A crocodile sleeping in the sun. |
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| This bridge was washed out the night before when we got about 120 mm of rain (~4.75 inches of rain) in a few hours. |
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| The waterfall |
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| A close-up of the waterfall. |
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| The swimming hole. |
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| Not too far downstream from the swimming hole was this crocodile preparing his meal. Our guide said that is most likely a rabbit in its mouth. |
Then we enjoyed a nice lunch at the ranger station and made our way back to the inn via boat (the only way to really get around Drake Bay as the roads end at the town and most of the lodging is situated in the rainforest after that).
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| We lounged in hammocks a lot. |
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| Cupcake found me a coconut to open. |
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| I got this... (that is a dull rock in my hand, which did nothing and I never got the coconut open) |
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| The beach at the San Pedrillo Ranger Station. |
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The GPS signal looks like it was weak as it has us rarely walking on a steady path. You get the idea, though, and our two bushwhacks are captured. |
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