Tim's Costa Rica
Links
Spent about a month here in
CR, traveling by local bus all over the country, with my trusty
backpack!
Pension
Lucy, in Montezuma; less than $5 per night for a private room, right on the
ocean! Very typical!
Shopping for dinner near Fortuna
Mal Pias (Bad Land)
Mal Pias, on Cabo Blanco
After a week in Montezuma, I had heard
so many good things about Cabo Blanco and Mal Pias, only about
20km away. After sharing a couple meals with Alison, we decided
to find a truck to take us that way. The trail is very rough,
with one serious river crossing.... but we found two other
women to team up with and share the cost. The five of us made
the journey, and somehow made it to Mal Pias safely. The other
two girls only stayed one night, but Alison and I had three excellent
days there!
Golfito
I had been with other travlers all
throughout Guatemala, the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, and all
of Panama. We all split up in Panama; most were headed to South
America,,,, so I jumped on a bus and headed north back into
Costa Rica and towards Golfito (and hopefully Corcovado National
Park).
In Golfito I checked into the least
expensive place in town, and there was only one other person there;
a woman named Heike from Germany. She was in the middle
of a nine month solo biking trip throughout Central America, and
was also hoping to spend a week backpacking into the remote wilderness
rainforest of Corcovado National Park! We spent the next
month together here, in Fortuna, and later in Nicaragua.
On the roof of the ferry with Heike!
Dinner in Golfito with Heike; a big
Fish Dinner for $1.50/US
We spent a couple days horseback
riding, hanging out with the locals, and gathering supplies for
our trek into the Park.
Corcovado National Park
The hike into Corcovado National Park
was Awesome! We stopped and camped here (not legal or recommended)
the first night, since big rain was moving in fast, and we were
still a few hours short of the first ranger station. We gathered
some firewood, light an excellent campfire, and took a nice refreshing
skinnydip. The rain picked up and the fire struggled to keep up
with the drenching it was receiving. We gave up on the fire after
an hour, and crawled into the tent. During the night we could
hear and see several monkeys roaming around near the tent. We
were up at dawn for another dip, and saw several more monkeys
that were out gathering the fruits that had been knocked down
by the rain.
We cooked breakfast over a campfire,
and after another nice swim we watched something turbulent floating
along, just offshore, carried by the currents and tide. We kept
seeing fins popping up around it! After studying it
for a half hour with the binoculars, we realized that it was a
dead sea turtle, and that the fins looked almost like shark
fins.
Later that afternoon at the ranger
station, we asked about swimming. The ranger said "...if
you go in the ocean, don't wade in over your knees, or if you
do, just get in and out quick. There are usually sharks just offshore...".
He confifmed that we had probably seen sharks trying to munch
on a dead turtle. For the rest of the week we mostly swam
in the lagoons, but even there we often had to stay aware of the
numerous caimen that would hang out in the water and along the
shore!
Eating tomatoes for lunch with Heike
on the hike into Corcorvado National Park It is about an
8 hour hike along the beach to get into the park, so we loaded
the backpacks with a weeks worth of goodies!
Fortuna
The hike up to the Waterfalls near Fortuna is an
extra treat. I biked most of the way. And half way up an old man was
selling coconuts, so I stopped and bought a couple to drink on the way up,
and a couple more on the ride down.
Sirena Biological Station,
Parque Nacional Corcovado
Lonely Planet-DESTINATION COSTA RICA
Next Stop; Honduras
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Page created and by Tim
D; January, 1999 (updated 4/26/02)
(page me here; ICQ# 20756120)