Corcovado National Park

On June 3rd we left Panama and here we are in Costa Rica. Crossing the border between the two countries is relatively quick and efficient, with the formalities taking about an hour. As our first destination in Costa Rica, we chose Corcovado National Park. This national park is located on the Pacific coast, about 150 km from the Panama border, and is recognized as a place of exceptional wilderness and beauty. We had planned to stay here for three days, but finding the opportunity to rent a small villa in the middle of the jungle at a price that in Europe you rent a room in a hotel with lots of noisy beer drinkers and poorly behaved children in the pool, we decided to stay here for no less than six nights. Being in the off-season, we were practically alone, with four of the six nights spent here being two other visitors in another villa. I have no words to describe how peaceful, beautiful and wild this national park is. Truly a dream place for nature lovers!

There are miles of trails around the resort, through the surrounding jungle. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your adventurous spirit and physical abilities, the trails are very poorly maintained (the last maintenance dates back to before the coronavirus outbreak). On most of the trails you feel like Indiana Jones, and the risk of losing your bearings in the dense rainforest is extremely high. We used a Garmin Adventure GPS to navigate efficiently, this small waterproof device being an exceptional tool for serious hiking in areas with poor orientation. As usual when possible, we try to do our own activities and trails, without guides or organized groups. There are also organized group tours in the national park, but apart from the fact that they have exorbitant prices, I don't think they can show you more things in a few hours than our intense and long hikes.

The fauna we observed is unusually rich for a tropical rainforest. Although we weren't able to photograph them, we were able to observe rare species such as the jaguarundi (a species of wild cat), the kinkajou, the squirrel frog, and the giant cane toad.Læs mere