Corcovado Park – Environmental Conservation At Its Best!
If you like adventure travel, then this could be right up your alley. The guest author describes a really remarkable, unspoiled part of our planet. Costa Rica has protected this pristine area, demonstrating remarkably responsible environmental conservation. Fortunately for it, Corcovado Park is still wild enough (read undeveloped) to discourage normal tourism.
So if adventure tours appeal to you, check out this terrific guest article…
Image courtesy of http://searunner.sv-timemachine.net/2006/11/bahia-drake-to-golfito/
Costa Rica Vacations Wilderness Hiking: Corcovado Park
Corcovado National Park (Parque Nacional Corcovado) may be known as the Amazon of Costa Rica. For great reason. The tiny park, merely 42,000 hectares (about 100,000 acres) in dimensions, can be found on the Osa Peninsula, situated along the southern Pacific coastline of Costa Rica, in close proximity to the Panama border. For hardy wilderness lovers, hiking here is a great way to experience true Costa Rica ecotourism.
Most tourists do not realize that Costa Rica got its name from Christopher Columbus who explored the Americas in 1502. He sailed the Caribbean from Mexico south, landed south of what is now Limon, Costa Rica, and named his discovery ‘Costa Rica’ or the ‘rich coast’. We can only imagine what he saw along the way. Spectacular tropical forests covering Central America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Waters teeming with fish, porpoises, and whales. So many sea turtles that seafarers, lost in the fog, found shore simply by listening to the sounds of tens of thousands of animals paddling towards nesting beaches. Alas, the passage of five centuries has not been kind to either the forests or animals and today most of the primary forests from Mexico to South America have been cut down or burned. Fortunately, Costa Rica had the good sense to preserve Corcovado and its primary rainforest.
Approximately seven decades after Columbus set foot landed on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, an English sea captain, Sir Frances Drake (you may know him as the fellow who destroyed the Spanish Armada in 1588 and saved England from Spain), explored its Pacific coast and, indeed, landed in a lovely bay on the north end of the Osa Peninsula. Famous for its gateway to the Osa and its great sports fishing, you may have heard of it: Drake Bay. It’s a favorite place of anglers on their Costa Rica vacations.
Although Corcovado is very little, merely about 20 miles in length and 8 miles wide—-less than 50 % the size of New York City, it may be, as National Georgraphic relates: the most biologically intense place on the planet. Contemplate the following: One can find 400 assorted species of birds crammed within this tiny place (the 48 States of the continental United States have about 900). The most significant remaining Latin America population of the magnificent, but increasingly scarce, scarlet macaws, is still common here. The Corcovado mammal species total about 10% of the varieties of mammals to be present in all of the Americas and they live on just .000101777 percent of the world’s landmass. Additionally, 116 species of reptiles and amphibians and 139 assorted mammals are living here. For you to put this park’s size in context, you could fit it into Yellowstone more than 22 times!
Still, it has six different kinds of wild felines, among them the magnificent jaguar and mountain lion.
If you are a fan of amphibians (I am referring to frogs here) Corcovado is a terrific place to see the glass frog, poison-arrow frogs, and the rare red-eyed tree frog. It is also one of few places in Costa Rica you will find squirrel monkeys. You’ll find fishing bats over the rivers after dark. This park is also thought to to be one of the last stands of the Harpy Eagle which is probably on its way to extinction in Costa Rica.
At Corcovado National Park, you’ll discover kilometer after kilometer of apparently deserted seashores. I say apparently because these beaches are nesting grounds for huge leatherback turtles (weighing more than half a ton), Pacific Ridley, green and hawksbill sea turtles. Tapirs are common and provide food for ferocious jaguars and crocodiles. The spoor of these large cats are frequently found in the muddy trails surrounding the Corcovado Lagoon and they can also be sighted frequently. Bring your camera and stay alert!
This is rainforest so assume rain , lots of it—200 inches or more a year. The trees, amazing in their variety, are as tall as any found in the Amazon, Malaysia, and Indonesia, and it is easy to see why the park has been referred to as the Amazon of Costa Rica. The best time to visit is in the dry months from January to April as the park is inundated by torrential rains from April to December.
