Wonderfully diverse Costa Rica

Costa Rica sits at the center of where north meets south with respect to nature. The flora and fauna are representative of both North and South America (at least the tropical parts). We spent our first week in Costa Rica on the Pacific Coast visiting two national parks. The two national parks are quite a contrast with each other. One of them, Corcovado National Park is the largest national park in Costa Rica, on the remote Osa Pennisula on the south Pacific Coast. The other, Manuel Antonio National Park, is the smallest national park and is the most visited National Park in Costa Rica. Both are beautiful. And both have their issues with trying to balance people with nature. Both were set aside in the 1970s. Corcovado NP was seeing increasing logging encroaching on the largest tract of primary forest left in the Pacific Coast of Central America until it was set aside. There was also extensive gold mining on the pennisula. There still is some illegal gold mining in the park. The central coast of Costa Rica is well-developed with resorts and agriculture, especially large tracts of oil palm. Both National Parks are trying their best to balance tourism with the desires to keep the parks wild, although I don't think much of Manuel Antonio NP is very wild. Corcovado NP has far fewer tourists. It does feel quite wild. An amazing statistic is that 3% of the world's biodiversity may be found in Corcovado NP in only 42,000 hectares.

I did a great hike of about 20 km with a guide and a small group along the coast in Corcovado NP. The guide was amazing at finding all kinds of animals along the way. (His name is Randall Alberto Ruiz and contact is randallalberto7@gmail.com, +506 85813200.) He had discovered a vampire bat hanging in a hole in a termite mound a few weeks earlier. He also found tent bats hanging underneath a banana leaf. He found a silky anteater by the smell along the trail (I smelled nothing). He knew where to look for poison dart frogs. All kinds of birds including scarlet macaws, a trogon, caracara, and more. All four species of monkeys found in Costa Rica: howler monkeys, white-faced capuchins, spider monkeys, and squirrel monkeys. Saw a beautiful vine snake (appropriately named). Many coatis. Although there are jaguars in the park, they are not so easily found and stay mostly in the center of the park away from people. The hike (20 km, the furthest since my hip surgery) was very hot and humid, but a highlight was taking a dip in the cascading water at the halfway point. Another highlight of our visit was seeing baby turtles leave their nest and start booking it for the surf. Unfortunately a hawk swept down and got one of the baby turtles despite the best effort by turtle hatchery volunteers to scare away the hawk. But that is part of natural selection - the slowest turtles are selected against. The fastest, strongest were already in the water.

Manuel Antonio NP had many more primates in the park, but unfortunately they were of the species Homo sapiens. But also lots of monkeys, especially white-faced capuchins.

A highlight of Manuel Antonio NP is watching sloths (unfortunately not a great picture). Also the park has some beautiful beaches. And mangroves. A comical aspect of the park is that people are the ones that are caged at the snack bar in order to keep the monkeys from stealing food.