24 hours in
Eden
Fifty years on from the creation of Costa Rica’s Corcovado National Park – home to 2.5% of the world’s biodiversity – it still feels like a wild outpost, thanks to a strict policy limiting the number of visitors
Words Kate Humble
(Alamy)
The year was 1970, and two brothers – young men barely out of their teens – were setting out from their home in Guanacaste in the far north-west of Costa Rica to follow the coast south for 500km. One of the men, Conrado, turned to the other, Fabrice, and told him the journey would make them rich; that, in the remote peninsula to which they were headed, they would find rivers that ran with gold.
They eventually reached Puerto Jiménez on the Osa Peninsula: a scruffy, dusty settlement of shacks with plastic sheeting to keep out the weather and bars full of drunks and shattered dreams. The ragtag bunch of people who ended up there lurched, brawling and resolute, between the promise of riches and destitution. But sometimes someone would strike it big, and although their wealth might have been fleeting – all but spent in a night of revelry – the story of their find would spread. It would become legendary and would be enough to stiffen the resolve of the young and desperate to keep searching.
But it was not enough for Fabrice. After a month of setting out day after day on the steep, muddy trails, enduring the intense, muggy heat, the insect bites, the scrapes, scratches and rashes inflicted on him by the inhospitable forest, he was done and headed back north, leaving his older brother behind.
Conrado loved the forest; he loved the days spent in the cool running waters of the rivers, shovelling the dark, volcanic sand into his pan and swirling it with increasing expertise, eyes alert to the ever-possible glint of gold. And his persistence paid off. He did find gold. Not enough to make him rich, but enough to enrich his life. He bought a piece of land on the edge of the township and asked Juanita, the young woman he had met when he helped carry her groceries, to marry him. Puerto Jiménez became their home, the place where they chose to settle and raise a family.
Then, in 1975, this little-known outpost of Costa Rica was visited by President Daniel Oduber Quirós. He was well aware of his country’s resources, their potential for exploitation and the financial benefits they could bring. His predecessors had made the most of this natural bounty. Logging rights to the forests, including on the Osa Peninsula, had been sold to foreign corporations, and the newly cleared land saw cattle and banana plantations take the place of the ancient trees.
But there were also people who understood that Costa Rica’s forests had a value that was infinitely greater and longer lasting, though only if they were left intact. As early as the 1950s, scientists were starting to advocate the need to protect Costa Rica’s forests as vital components of the world’s tropical ecosystem. It was one of these scientists, a Costa Rican biologist called Alvaro Ugalde, that the President had contacted seeking advice, prompted by a letter he had received that exalted the biological value and beauty of the Osa peninsula and urged him to protect it.
By then, Ugalde was already making a name for himself as the inspirational leader of Costa Rica’s fledgling National Parks Service. The first of the country’s parks was established in 1970, and the second in 1973. Should the Corcovado basin on the Osa Peninsula become the third?
Ugalde wrote later that ‘my mind lit up like a candle and my heart was pumping hard’ on hearing the question. ‘Here was, I thought, a heck of a new opportunity for the conservation of the Osa.’
The author enters Corcovado, home to an estimated 2.5% of the planet’s biodiversity (Ludo Graham)
The Geoffroy’s spider monkey, found on the Osa Peninsula, weighs up to 9kg and is one of Costa Rica’s largest monkeys (Alamy)
It was also a heck of a task. Not all the land was owned by the government. In the 1950s, over 45,000 hectares of the peninsula had been sold to the American company Osa Forest Products. And there were also over 160 squatters – jobless Costa Ricans who had taken up residence and staked a claim to the land. A deal was struck. It was agreed that every occupant within the area of the proposed park would be paid the full value of their property, given a new home to move to and transportation to get them there. But it was a gruelling and often upsetting task, involving many highly charged and angry meetings with squatters who already had so little to lose. ‘My role was to clean the park of human activities,’ Ugalde wrote, ‘and my personal principal was to do it as humanely as possible, because they were terribly affected.’
By 1975, Osa Forest Products realised its position was untenable and approached the President to discuss the possibility of swapping its land for an area outside the proposed boundary of the park. As a result, Daniel Oduber Quirós signed two decrees that October: one granting the company its land swap, and the second establishing the creation of Corcovado National Park, protecting 424 sq km of the Osa Peninsula.
For small-time gold miners like Conrado, this signalled the end of an era. Some would breach the park boundaries, hoping to evade the rangers, but Conrado had been wise in buying his land. His farm could help feed his growing family. Juanita took in laundry. They got by. They were happy. Occasionally he would take his spade and pan to a river outside the park and try his luck, bringing his children along. His youngest son, Carlos, loved going to the river with his father, but it wasn’t the lure of gold that fired his enthusiasm; it was the forest itself. He was fascinated by the vibrant, dynamic world beneath the canopy – every plant, every track, every web, nest and animal. He loved talking to the old timers: men who had lived in and from the forest their whole lives.
There wasn’t enough money to send Carlos to high school, so the boy panned for it. He followed the men who risked sifting the rivers in the park, and he found enough gold to pay for his school fees. Carlos was the first in his family to get into university. He came out with a degree in environmental management, then later trained to be a guide, taking people to the park that had both inspired him and enabled him to become one of its new generation of advocates and protectors.
Fifty years on from Corcovado’s creation, this is where my story begins.
The Osa Peninsula was at the mercy of loggers and squatters until a national park was set up 50 years ago (Alamy)
Kate wanders the shores of Corcovado (Ludo Graham)
Nature’s work
I met Carlos on the beach early in the morning. At 6am, the first rays of the sun began to breach the forested ridge that encircles the bay, casting fingers of light on the hard-packed sand and throwing sparkles into the surf. A puppy scampered delightedly around the legs of two much bigger dogs until they lost patience and gave chase. The beach thronged with people, all of them dressed not for sunbathing or swimming but for adventure, with walking boots tied to their rucksacks. Beyond the waves was a flotilla of brightly painted motorboats. One by one, they were waved into shore as small groups broke away from the throng and walked gingerly into the surf to climb aboard.
Even today, the Osa Peninsula retains its outpost feel. The heart of both the region and the park is still inaccessible by road, and beyond the hub of Puerto Jiménez – now a more respectable little town with an airstrip, bank and shops – are only a few small coastal villages connected by dusty gravel roads.
One of these settlements is Drake Bay. Named after Sir Francis, who is said to have landed here in 1579, it is a shabbily picturesque place that retains an edge-of-the-world vibe. I took in the scattered homes and guesthouses that lay hidden among the foliage above the curve of the bay, which stretched, largely untouched and undeveloped, for miles. It was here that I took a boat to Corcovado National Park, speeding along the line of the beach until the sand ran out and the trees took over.
“The heart of both the Osa Peninsula and the national park is still inaccessible by road”
Having disembarked from the boat, I looked at Carlos, bemused. The other groups of visitors had melted away into the forest, but we’d walked just a few metres from where the boat landed and were looking at the concrete remains of a building.
“This was the school,” Carlos told me, “and over there was the football pitch. There was a village here, and farms. There would have been no trees, just fields and cattle.”
I looked up into the kaleidoscope of leaves above me, so dense that they blocked out the sky, and so varied that it was impossible to gauge the number of species.
“But it feels so… established,” I spluttered out loud. “So… ancient.”
There was a rustle followed by a fleeting shadow. A tiny face peered down at us. A squirrel monkey.
“That’s an indicator that we are in secondary forest,” Carlos explained to me. “They don’t have prehensile tails, and they are so small that they need the more closely packed vegetation of secondary forests to be able to move around. The primary forest is inland from here. Everything on this flat coastal plain has grown in the last 50 years.”
I assumed that there had been a huge replanting scheme after the park was established. Carlos swiftly corrected me: “No. This is all nature’s work.”
Kate chats to Carlos [left], her guide, who grew up alongside the national park (Ludo Graham)
The white-nosed coati, a relative of the raccoon family, is a common sight here because it forages during the day (Alamy)
A day in the forest
Nature had done her work well. The forest was buzzing, hooting, fluttering and cackling with life. One of the popular statistics you will read about Corcovado is that it is home to more than 2.5% of the world’s biodiversity. On paper, this might not seem particularly startling. But when you are here, standing amid all that biodiversity, you start to understand that everything, from a microscopic fungus right up to the mightiest trees and predatory cats, is connected. It is then that you are struck anew by the wonder of it all.
For many of the animals we encountered on our walks, it seemed like we were just another creature that they had happened upon, no more worthy of their attention than the industrious columns of leafcutter ants or the flitting butterflies.
We crossed paths with a band of peccaries (small, boar-like creatures) meandering through the undergrowth, stopping periodically to munch on leaves or to chivvy a youngster to keep up. They ignored us completely and carried on as if we weren’t there. Similarly, when we reached the banks of a river and were scanning for crocodiles and admiring the sweeping flight of a hunting osprey, a tapir emerged from the shadows and wandered nonchalantly in our direction, inciting a collective gasp of excitement and a scrabbling for cameras. The tapir, unperturbed, sauntered silently on.
Carlos opined that the animals’ reaction, or lack thereof, was an indication that tourism in the park was being managed well. Only limited visitor numbers are allowed in each day, with the requirement that they be accompanied by a registered guide. There are strict rules about not bringing in food, helping to keep the impact of visitors to a minimum. But the impact of the visit on me was profound.
I spent 24 hours in the park, overnighting alongside 88 other people in the closely packed bunk beds of the Sirena Ranger Station. The luxury part of this experience was not the accommodation; it was to be in the forest as the sun sank into the Pacific; to feel the oncoming cathedral-like hush; to hear the first clicks of the tree frogs; and to walk back along the grass airstrip to the ranger station, fireflies flickering among the trees.
The next day, I awoke pre-dawn to the howler monkeys’ cacophony and stood barefoot on the grass, gazing up as the stars faded and the light seeped into the sky, heralded by the sound of toucans and macaws. By day, the forest kept yielding its sights to me: a sloth curled in the crook of a branch, an anteater moving through the canopy overhead in search of termite nests, a walk along the beach with a tapir.
It seemed all the more remarkable when I considered that this extraordinary ecosystem was only here because some humans – scientists, conservationists, a president – had the foresight to understand, to act and to protect. Just as thrilling was what nature could achieve in 50 years. It left me with a sense of hope that followed me back to the boat and beyond.
As well as Corcovado…
Caño Island
A 45-minute boat ride from the village of Drake Bay, Caño Island is one of Costa Rica’s best snorkelling and dive sites (I went with Drake Bay Diving). The island is a biological reserve, and there is a walking trail to a lookout point and a pre-Columbian archaeological site. The out-and-back Drake Bay Hiking Trail starts from the town of Drake Bay and follows the coast to Rincon Beach (11km), from where it is possible to arrange transport back.
The Golfo Dulce
A nursery ground for humpback whales, August, September and October are the best months to see Southern Hemisphere humpbacks here, while November to February is the peak period for spotting their northern cousins. Short kayaking trips among the mangroves and multi-day sea-kayak trips around the Golfo Dulce can be arranged locally.
Osa Conservation
Osa Conversation is a non-profit set up to research and protect the peninsula. The campus is open to visitors and offers a chance to experience this coastal forest habitat in more depth. Birding, hiking, climbing the canopy tower and the release of turtle hatchlings are all activities visitors can take part in. You can also find out more about the pioneering work being done to increase tree coverage and create wildlife corridors linking the forests of Costa Rica and Panama.
Opposite: An aerial view of Caño Island (Shutterstock)
Corcovado National Park is inaccessible by road, with boats being the best way to reach its more remote spots (Ludo Graham)
Baird’s tapirs are the largest land-dwelling mammals in Central America, with adults reaching a length of 1.5m and weighing around 250kg. These peaceful giants are known as the ‘gardeners of the forest’, owing to the diversity of plants, fruits and seeds they eat, spreading the latter in their dung (Alamy)
Need to know
When to go
British Airways has direct flights from London Gatwick to Juan Santamaría International Airport in San José from around £669 return, taking 12 hours.
What to bring
Your guide will have a scope but many visitors don’t bring binoculars. If you are interested in wildlife, a pair is essential. Also bring lightweight, quick-drying clothing, sunscreen, a hat, a water bottle, walking boots and amphibious sandals – hopping on and off the boat to Sirena Beach means wet feet.
Where to stay
The accommodation at Sirena Ranger Station is in a shared, open-sided dorm. There are no fans or air-conditioning and guests sleep on bunk beds. Pillows, sheets and mosquito nets are provided. The station has canteen-style meals and there is a small shop. You can’t bring food or single-use plastic into the park.
Further reading & information
You are not allowed to visit Corcovado without a permit or a licensed guide, and the number of people allowed into the park each day is strictly limited. If travelling independently, book through a local tour operator in Puerto Jiménez or Drake Bay.
The trip
The author travelled with Pura Aventura, whose 18-night Caribbean to Pacific: Costa Rica Hidden Highlights tour includes a day trip to Corcovado National Park (pura-aventura.com).
Don’t forget to look up (Ludo Graham)
