Corcovado Day 3 - Bahía Drake

Another early start although slightly earlier so we could grab a coffee before the 5 am jungle walk. lissa almost broke her little toe stubbing into a chair in the dark.
As we set off the moon was amazing and Melissa managed to get a brilliant picture through the scope.
We headed off and completed one of the trails that does touch into primary jungle but also spent time again down at the river entrance waiting for Tapir and Crocodile.
After breakfast and packing up, we carried our packs the kilometre back to the embarkation point on the coast. A walk in the jungle is never a quick thing though and we stopped on numerous times to look at various examples of amazing wildlife. We saw the 3 toed sloth again which we have since learnt had probably recently lost its baby and was in a period of mourning!
Once the bags were dropped off, we completed another route on the southern end of the park and were rewarded with at least 25 female white nosed Coatis that were moving through quite rapidly on a feeding frenzy. Just before this we had also spotted a Green rat snake 🐍 although it was rather shy and disappeared behind the trunk of a large tree quite quickly.
We were also treated to a solitary Howler monkey having a real feast followed by a pee and a poo almost above us!
We then had to hang around at the embarkation point but managed to find some shade to relax. Getting back on the boat was less hazardous than arriving and as with the last journey once we set off we were lucky enough to see some Dolphins although this time there were about three or four.
Puerto Jimenez in sunshine looked a little bit more inviting on our arrival than when we had turned up several days before. There was quite a small cruise ship in the harbour with a lot of the passengers kayaking in the bay.
We said goodbye to Shirley and Javier and our excellent guide.
Interestingly, Giovany on our last jungle walk told us that he had been bitten by a Fer de Lance snake as a youngster and had spent a week in hospital recovering – thankfully with no lasting damage. We did look quite hard for snakes after this but probably quite thankfully didn’t see any.
Before collecting the car we popped into a bar next door and had a really refreshing drink and Derry had a quick swim. We also saw a few small planes landing onto the runway next to the ‘serial killers’ accommodation, the place of our first night in Puerto Jimenez.
The journey to Bahia drake was only about 27 miles but seemed to take ages as the last 15 miles was on unpaved, and at times, horrible roads. it probably is worth mentioning that as we were driving around Puerto Jimenez looking for a bank we did see the drunk man again - thankfully upright and not looking too wobbly.
Bahia Drake is an amazing place in that despite access being quite tricky there is a lot there. Lots of accommodation, bars, restaurants and a real vibe to the place.
We are staying at the Cotingas hotel in a family suite, which was up a pretty unpleasant stairway. Derry thankfully carried most of the bags!
Rather than exploring further as it was already dark, we decided to have food in the Restaurant on site.
Unfortunately, because we had had a couple of drinks due to our forced abstinence for the duration of our jungle trip the meal was hard to complete as we were all rather tired.
It was such a relief to come back to air cooled accommodation after the jungle. I suspect we fell asleep within seconds.Read more