Corcovado National Park - Visit The Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica
Without a doubt, Costa Rica is a beautiful, spectacular country and a premier tourist destination. Most people, though, have never heard of its natural gem, Corcovado National Park. This teeny park covers only 100,000 acres (about 42,000 hectares) of the Osa Peninsula, situated along the south Pacific coast of Costa Rica, and protects eight unique habitats. It is unlike almost anywhere else on the planet and the largest remaining primary forest in Central America.
Most tourists do not realize that Costa Rica got its name from Christopher Columbus who explored the Americas in 1502. He sailed the Caribbean from Mexico south, landed south of what is now Limon, Costa Rica, and named his discovery ‘Costa Rica’ or the ‘rich coast’. We can only imagine what he saw along the way. Spectacular tropical forests covering Central America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Waters teeming with fish, porpoises, and whales. So many sea turtles that seafarers, lost in the fog, found shore simply by listening to the sounds of tens of thousands of animals paddling towards nesting beaches. Alas, the passage of five centuries has not been kind to either the forests or animals and today most of the primary forests from Mexico to South America have been cut down or burned. Fortunately, Costa Rica had the good sense to preserve Corcovado and its primary rainforest.
Columbus never saw Corcovado. The first Western explorer to see it was Sir Frances Drake (remember him? The sea captain who destroyed the Spanish Armada in 1588 and saved England from Spain) who landed just north of the Osa Peninsula in a beautiful place now named after him: Drake Bay. The bay serves as the gateway to Corcovado.
Though Corcovado is very tiny, only about 20 miles long and 8 miles wide—-less than half the size of New York City, it is, as National Georgraphic says: the most biologically intense place on the globe. Consider this: There are 400 different species of birds crammed into this teeny place (the 48 States of the continental United States have about 900). The largest remaining Central America population of the spectacular, and increasingly rare, scarlet macaws, is still common here. The Corcovado mammal species represent 10% of the kinds of mammals to be found in all of the Americas and they exist on just 0.000101777 percent of the landmass. There are 116 species of reptile and amphibians and 139 different mammals found here. To put this parks size in context, you could fit it into Yellowstone more than 22 times! Yet, it contains six different kinds of wild cats, including the magnificent jaguar and puma.
Rare frogs such as the red-eyed tree frog, poison-arrow frog and the enigmatic glass frog are all found here. And this park is one of only a handful of sites in Costa Rica where you will find squirrel monkeys. At night, fishing bats literally scoop fish from the rivers.
At Corcovado, you will find miles of apparently deserted beaches. I say apparently because these beaches provide nesting grounds for huge leatherback (weighing more than half a ton), Pacific Ridley, green and hawksbill sea turtles. Tapirs are plentiful and provide food for ferocious jaguars and crocodiles. The spoor of these large cats is regularly found in the muddy trails around the Corcovado Lagoon and they are also sighted frequently. Bring your camera and stay alert!
This is rainforest so expect precipitation, lots of it—200 inches or more a year. The trees, incredible in their diversity, are as tall as any found in the Amazon, Malaysia, and Indonesia, and it is easy to see why the park is often referred to as the Amazon of Costa Rica. The best time to visit is in the dry months from January to April as the park is inundated by torrential rains from April to December.
