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Corcovado
National Park
Puerto Jimenez, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
With
one of the world’s best systems of reserves and
national parks, Costa Rica’s thirty-five wildlife
refuges protect more than 25 percent of the country’s
territory; choosing where to head first is a visitors
toughest choice. Covering one third of the remote Osa
Peninsula that juts into the Pacific Ocean, in what
National Geographic called “the most biologically
intense place on earth, “ the Corcovado National
Park is difficult to reach. You may, at times, feel
like the only human interloper on the trails (there
are no roads) meandering through its 100,000 acres.
Corcovado is one of the country’s largest and
wildest parks, safeguarding virgin rain forest, deserted
beaches, jungle-rimmed rivers, and a large, inaccessible
swampland. Within its broad rant of habitats live more
than 140 species of mammals, from tapirs to ocelots
and cougars. It has the largest remaining population
of scarlet macaws, with – together with the other
375 other species of birds in the park that occupy more
than 850 kinds of trees- vie with four species of monkeys
to be hear amid the wildlife cacophony…
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Click on the picture to enlarge |
…
If roughing it is not your taste, then consider Lapa
Rios, a bungalow hideaway perched 350 feet above the
Pacific in its lush own 1,000 acre nature reserve on
the outskirts of Corcovado. Its American owners have
created an intimate setup where guests can learn all
about the encroaching rain forest. But school was never
this much fun, or fascinating, or luxurious. Spread
over three panoramic ridges above the Golfo Dulce in
a self-contained corner of the Osa Peninsula, Lapa Rios’s
wondrous exposures of ocean and forest are evident everywhere
from open-air observation platforms, the bar-restaurant,
and the fourteen simple guest rooms appointed in polished
tropical woods. Days revolve around nature, beginning
with an early-bird tour that lets you share the sunrise
with the indigenous bird species (Lapa Rios means “Rivers
of the Macaws”) and ending with shaman-guided
medicinal treks and night nature walks.
See other Lapa Rios articles here
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