“The Most Biologically Intense Place On Earth” – Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica

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Located in the Osa Peninsula in the south-western part of the Puntarenas Province is the breathtakingly beautiful Corcovado National Park, very rightly described by National Geographic, as “the most biologically intense place on earth”. Puerto Jimenez, the main city of the Osa Peninsula has its own airport and provides tourists easy access to the park as well as other tourist attractions in the area, which include Cabo Matapalo’s row of coastal villages. Another main access point to the park is via boat from Drake Bay.

Although Costa Rica is rich in natural beauty and has an abundance of national parks and biological reserves, Corcovado National Park stands out from the rest. It is home to the largest lowland rainforests in the American Pacific and one of the only remaining primary lowland tropical rainforests of its size in the world. Gold mining and logging had begun here in the 1960’s destroying the ecology at a fast rate and so in 1975, President Daniel Oduber turned Corcovado into a National Park.

By 1986, the gold miners who had remained there were also evicted, as they were hunting and endangering the wildlife species in the area. Today, even though the park is still at risk of human activity due to a considerable rise in ecotourism, there are a plethora of wildlife species that include around a thousand varieties of plants and animals. The endangered Baird’s Tapir and Harpy Eagle, all four species of the Costa Rican monkey – the Central American Squirrel Monkey, White-faced Capuchin, Geoffroy’s Spider Monkey and the Mantled Howler are found here.

Other wildlife species that inhabit the Corcovado National Park are the jaguar, puma, northern tamandua, the two and three-toed sloth, coati, poison dart frog and huge numbers of American crocodiles, spectacled caiman and bull sharks. Apart from an abundance of wildlife, Corcovado is also home to 13 different ecosystems that include mangrove forests, cloud forest, alluvial plains forest, freshwater swamps and palm swamps to name a few.

Hiking is popular and the best way to explore the beauties of the park, but it is advisable to take one of the guided tours that one can book from either Puerto Jimenez or Drake Bay. One can choose to take a day trip to the national park, but if you are a real nature lover, you might want to make it an overnight trip. Again, if you are a daring adventurer, you may choose to camp in the open or else you could opt to stay at one of the four ranger stations that have bunk beds.

All trips must be planned well in advance to facilitate a better and more comfortable experience. The climate is hot and humid throughout the year. July to November are mostly wet months and so parts of the park may be closed.