Costa Rica: Corcovado National Park

The hour and a half boat ride out to Sirena station at Corcovado National Park is a very bumpy, choppy ride. I highly recommend keeping your focus on land and sitting as far rearward as possible. I've never gotten seasick before, but had serious problems on this one.

A picturesque flock of birds.

Right up close to a sleeping Tapir!

Lots of Crocs in this area.

There's actually one chilling just to the right of this photo, but blended so well he's almost impossible to see.

This was quite a large spider. Very common in the area.

Lots of mud to trek through made my option to take flip flops for rocky areas and go barefoot everywhere else a good one!

Lots of snakes. Usually coiled around trees!

This one was huge!

Bare feet worked great on the nicely smooth, but very muddy trails.

Getting as close as I dared for this shot.

The trails really were quite nice!

And animals like this howler monkey were everywhere!

A group of them followed us at one point and started throwing branches and peeing towards us.

Would be great for trail running if not for all the tour groups around that would be angry at someone chasing away the wildlife.

Another gorgeous river.

Leading out towards the ocean. Unfortunately this was the turnaround point for the tour.

But finally found an anteater digging in for a meal at the end of the tour!

 

And there I go, walking away (sideways) into the forest.

 

The boat ride back was much better, and included views such as this waterfall.

 

 And this beautiful cove off the ocean. It was a very choppy area. Quite impressed with the boat captain.

The next morning started the long journey back to civilization however.

But not before some boat troubles led the boat captain to decide on an impromptu shortcut through the shallow mangroves to make up lost time. Thankfully, it worked! And I made my bus back to San Jose.

Costa Rica: Rio Claro

Upon arrival, The size and growth of the trees is spectacular.

The sign pointing the way.

A Scarlet Macaw in the trees.

Wasn't much use for a shirt (or even shoes) in this area.

The start of Rio Claro.

It looks shallow here, but the right side is plenty deep enough for an awesome rope swing.

The man at Rio Claro. For $15 he sends you up the river in a boat with a guide and all proceeds go to local turtle conservation efforts.

Great place to chill out.

With a view like this, what more could one want?

On the way into the heart of the jungle.

The crew is a small one.

Here is the first of a couple of spots where the boat had to be carried a bit.

Our boat captain in the back.

That rope is for easy climbing access up to a waterfall beyond.

But for now is another rapids to tackle upstream a bit.

This spot was a tricky one to keep moving up.

But we made it.

And up ahead was the turnaround point. The current was much too strong to continue on. I tried swimming into it, but it just threw me sideways into a rock that ripped the front of my shorts open.

So I flipped my shorts around and swam back.

To the previous spot I mentioned with the waterfall beyond.

Rio Claro is below.

And the waterfall beyond!

Past this one were several more, however, I didn't trust myself to bring the camera any further. At one point, I swam under a rock to get to another one and then jumped off each waterfall to get back. It really was just too incredible to document.