Into the wild...

Deep into the southern depths of the osa peninsula, around the golfo dulce to the tip of cabo matapalo.
The frontier town of Puerto Jimenez is not what a frontier town conjures up in one’s mind being at the end of civilization. Expectations of cowboys and renegades hiding deep from civilization are quelched when we roll up into a typical Costa Rican town. Denielle had read that we needed to obtain a park pass for Corcovado National Park here before reaching the actual park, so we began our search for the National Conservation Office. Driving up and down the main street a few times failed to locate our target, so I pulled into the local police station to ask for directions. The reply from the policeman sitting at his desk doing paperwork did not inspire confidence that we would find it however, as the description was long and drawn out with many landmarks, turns and twists involved. All I knew was that we needed to find the beach and keep driving. So we navigated some small side streets, heading towards the ocean, and crossed a small bridge to get to the waterfront. We cruised that strip twice before Denielle got out and asked directions for a second time. These directions of 200 meters back from where we had just come resulted in us finding nothing but a restaurant. They say that the third time’s a charm, so I went in to the restaurant and asked for directions that eventually led us to the building. For those of you finding yourself in the same situation, the building is located across from the airport runway next to a car rental company.

Entering the National Conservation Office, we registered for two days in the park and overnight camping as the lodge was full. We were issued a piece of paper that we then had to take to the bank to pay the fees, and return to get our passes after doing so. Now inside the bank, we stood, puzzled, trying to decipher the instructions on the Star Trekesque door leading to the interior. You had to push the button, and one of the sliding doors would open, leading you into a chamber. Then the door would close behind you, with only room for one person at a time, before the next door leading to the inside of the bank slid open. They are very serious about their security here. Once gaining entrance, we grabbed a number and waited for our turn. After paying the fees, we tried to leave, but a long line of people trying to enter the bank gave Denielle pause at the door. She didn’t realize that after the person coming in had left the chamber that the person trying to leave was supposed to enter. So we waited for 4 people from the other side to come in before the security guard realized we had no clue what was going on and held both of the sliding doors open, freeing us from our air conditioned high security imprisonment. We raced back to the park office and picked up our passes and were on our way to Cabo Matapalo, 18 kilometres south.

The road leading to Matapalo was fairly fast, with a few scattered potholes and river crossings, and a few old metal bridges that gave us quite a concern. These narrow one vehicle bridges had thin metal strips going in the longitudinal direction, and quarter inch rebar in the latitudinal direction to prevent tires falling through the spaces just large enough for a tire to fall trough. In some cases the rebar had broken free, posing serious tire shredding threat if to make contact with the edge of the tires. So we carefully crawled across each and every one, marvelling at the large trucks passing before us that caused the entire structure to shake, rattle and roll. The sign for our turnoff was facing in only the other direction, so we missed it and continued up some steep loose gravelly hills before deciding to turn back and find our road. We encountered two German tourists who were hitchhiking that looked quite distressed. So we moved our baggage as best we could and fit them in the back of the car. They had said that they were going to Matapalo, so I figured they could help us find the way. This time we found the turn off and dropped down the steep hill entrance to the road, where upon the German lady proclaimed that this was not the right way. They were in fact staying at Playa Sombrero, a few kilometres up the road. So we backed up the hill and continued on for a long way. Did they think we were some kind of taxi? After dropping them off, we returned to the proper turn off and began to scrape the bottom and sides of the car through and over large dips and depressions in the road until finding a nice spot to camp where the road deteriorated to an exaggerated walking path.

Setting up camp on the beach amongst a plethora of crab holes, we had little time to do much else but watch a handful of surfers ride some overhead waves coming in across the rock reef in the most amazing light blue turquoise water. That night, large land crabs like Macdonald’s double cheeseburgers invaded our campsite. I was reading a book by head lamp light, and had to keep poking back the large creatures finding shelter below our tent. These bright orange and purple crabs are nocturnal, and we had placed our tent above many of their homes, so as if in some kind of zombie movie, we defended our tent space throughout the night from these ten legged adversaries. Abounding wildlife in the area made for lots of great photo opportunities. I would say you had a better chance of seeing monkeys here than you would in a zoo. We witnessed a single howler monkey walking along the bamboo trees, and each evening before sunset, a troupe of capuchin monkeys would feed in the fig trees high over our head, tossing bits and pieces down below, venturing down to the ground to fetch the larger pieces that slipped away. There were some other tents set up but nobody was actually staying there. The view from our tent showed the other side of the Golfo Dulce, with Panama looming on the other side of the hills.

After the initial night’s crab invasion, we fell asleep in the hot humid tent. I awoke a few hours later to Denielle proclaiming that it had started to rain. We had left our tent fly off to decrease the sauna effect, but were now being bombarded by large raindrops from the heavens. So I sprang into action, getting out of the tent and applying the tarp just before the real downpour began. Then, as quickly as it had started, the rains subsided, but by this time it was approaching sunset and the howler monkeys would make it difficult to get back to sleep. That morning the skies were overcast, and after having a quick breakfast I decided to go out and catch some waves in the crystal blue water. I opted to not wear sunscreen as there was no sign of the sun, but of course after a while in the water the sun reappeared and began burning all of my exposed skin. With me in the surf were three other people, one guy from Saskatchewan that made the trip every year. The waves were big and fun, providing a large fast wall that you needed to race before sections would break in front of you. Not knowing what lay beneath, I had donned my reef booties, the equivalent of wearing socks with sandals on the coolness scale. But I caught a lot of waves, even saw a sea otter, and went back into the beach.

Later that afternoon, after a failed fishing attempt, Denielle and I went for a walk around the point and saw a scarlet macaw, a dead tuna, and some surfers using a sailboat as transportation around the peninsula. We returned to camp and began to prepare our bags for the early morning trip to the national park so we could make a quick escape and tackle the large hike ahead of us. I was a little upset that we were leaving such nice waves and such a beautiful spot, but we had little time before we had to return to Dominical to meet up with Nicole once again.

Tyler.