Our last night in Uvita we had torrential rain, and it has marked a real weather change here on the Central Pacific coast - cooler and frequent rains. Here is Lib on our last morning in Uvita taking a last dip in the pool in the pouring rain:
It has been a welcomed change and has made our time on the Osa quite lovely - warmth, sun, beautiful clouds, cooler evenings.
What can I tell you about the Osa...we drove south from Uvita for about an hour to the small river town of Sierpe. The road that we traveled on and had been traveling along the coast for the past week is the most beautiful road we've seen in Costa Rica so far. It is just 5 years old. We saw a small stretch of what was the previous "road" when we were in the Hacienda Baru reserve last week. I put "road" in quotations because it looked more like a forest jeep track. No wonder this area is changing so fast with this new easy access. The river is wide and muddy with clumps of floating water lily rafts scattered across the surface all moving quite quickly down river. This is where we picked up the boat to take us to our hotel.
It is quite beautiful and we quickly felt quite remote as we headed down the river - birds, snakes and crocodiles as companions along the way and the occasional house, too. It started to rain so we used the raincoats on the boat to keep dry. Lucas's fit quite well!
With the wind and rain, Matt was sporting a new do. What do you think? Can you say, Napolean Dynamite!
We took a side channel through the mangrove trees. They are so architectural. There were these grey and red crabs clinging to all of the mangrove roots. Really cool.
As we came to the mouth of the river, we put on our orange PFDs for the choppy, open ocean section of the trip. 15 minutes later we arrived in the tranquil cove of the hotel, which blends so nicely into the surrounding jungle.
You can hike in either direction from the hotel along a coastal trail - one direction leading to the more populated (I use the term loosely) of Drake Bay and the other leading hours south into the Corcovado National Park. Along the way, you find beautiful beach after beautiful beach. Our first full day here found us hiking south with the goal of reaching the Rio Claro about 45 mins away. However, the call of the ocean and sand at each beach we came to enticed Lucas into the water. We made it all of 20 minutes!
OK, a quick aside. Every place we've stayed no matter low end or higher end, we find the toilet paper folded into some beautiful shape or design. It is such a Costa Rican thing. It cracks me up and also makes me feel bad to destroy it when I actually need to use the toilet paper!
Day 3 we woke up at 5:00am for our day in the Corcovado National Park, an hour boat ride south along the coast. Lucas, Matt and I hiked through the park with our guide, Gustavo, who is a biologist. He has worked and guided in Corcovado for the past 15 years. His knowledge and insight were incredible. We started hiking around 7:30am and hiked until 12:30pm. Lucas was champ. We immediately started tracking a Baird's Tapir (the same species at the Woodland Park Zoo) having seen the tracks the moment we got off the boat. It wasn't until 5 hours later that we finally found it (in the place Gustavo initially looked) fast asleep in a mud pool deep in the shade.
Before finally encountering the tapir, we hiked along the "runway" at the park. Here is Gustavo standing at the end of it! Moments later, a small plane took off from the ranger station at the other end and flew right over our heads!
Here are some pics of the critters we were privileged to see:
A huge troop of Spider Monkeys - amazing swingers of the jungle. 2 of them were mamas with babies on their backs:
A Fer-de-Lance snake, the most lethal snake in all of North, Central and South America. It's about 4 feet long and if you are bitten you will die. The bigger you are the longer it takes to kill you! The best part about seeing the snake was how Gustavo knew it was there - noticing a certain pattern in the disturbance of the leaves on the trail, a broken branch, etc. Amazing! It was curled up under a longer just off the trail.
15 Collared Peckaries or Havalinas. They are so appealing - no aggressive, routing around looking for seeds and rolling in the mud.
Toucans, Black Hawks and a 12 foot crocodile that went from sleeping on the side of the river to riding the current to the ocean and surfing some waves to get out to a sand bar mostly likely in hopes of snagging a few brown pelicans for a snack. Who knew that crocodiles could be found in the ocean near the river mouth. Good to know!
Within 2 minutes of getting on the boat for the ride back to the hotel, Lucas passed out! I ended up cradling him in my lap for fear that he would nod over board! So sweet!
So, today is a hang day. Not sure what we will do - maybe hike to a beach for the afternoon. One thing we need to do is figure out where we will head to tomorrow once we get back to Sierpe. We have reached the "as-of-yet-unplanned" period of our adventure. We think we're headed to the Central Highlands in search of some different topography, weather and fewer tourists. February 20th we head to Panama for the final week. I think we are all feeling a bit sad about leaving Costa Rica. We have grown so fond of the people here. Matt and I now know that we don't need to do so much advanced planning on a trip like this. The magic happens once you arrive, start meeting people, and finding our way around. We feel so lucky to have had this experience and are also hopeful that we will have another chance in the future to apply what we learned this time around.
We have heard from several of you at home just how warm and wet it has been and therefore, how much is already blooming. Admittedly, the gardener in mean is feeling the itch to get my hands in the dirt and some pea seeds planted! We are sending lots of love from way down south, and will see you before we know it.
Off to find the Dressler boys..wonder what they have discovered while I have been writing...
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