Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica

July 18th 2014, 4:54:00 pm

After Poi Love Camp finished up I ended up travelling around Costa Rica for a while with a guy I'll just call 'T', together with a friend of his from France who I'll just call 'A'. We headed up to San Jose to meet up with 'A' at the airport, then got a very long bus all the way down to the south eastern end of the country to Golfito, where we stayed a night before getting a ferry over to Puerto Jiminez the next day. The ferry was actually a cramped tiny little boat, with so little room that our bags just got put up on the roof with no rope to tie them down or railings to keep them up there. I was very pleased there were still there when we reached the other side.

Right upon getting on land we saw our first wild scarlet macaws, beautiful big red birds, fidgeting around eating in a tree. There were heaps of them around down here, especially around the soccer field. It was not uncommon to see 5-6 of them in the big trees along there. We also saw a wild toucan and a few large tenasaurs in a tree directly out the front of someones home. Who needs tv when you've got cool shit like that in your front yard?

We tracked down the tourism office to sort out permits for Corcovado National Park, a drawn out process that involved getting a form from the office at one end of town, going over to the bank at the other end of town to pay for the permit, then going all the way back to the office with the receipt to get the actual passes.

There were no camping passes available for the next day, so the other two opted to get a day pass to walk in and around a bit, while I took a day to relax and prepare for the 20 km hike into the camp ground where we would spend 2 nights before hiking 20 km back out again, carrying in a tent and enough food and water to survive three days.

At a vote of two against me, we opted not to go with a guide to save some money. I later found out that as of the day we returned, it is now a requirement that everyone uses a guide when they visit the park, so depending on how you look at it we either got lucky (or unlucky) with our timing.

Even this early on I was getting the feeling this travel arrangement wasn't going to last long; 'A' seemed like a bit of a fool to me, and the two of them would speak together in French most of the time which was leaving me feeling completely isolated, but I figured it would be worth sticking together for the hike into the park at least for safety.

I spent my day alone getting some laundry done, sorting out tent rental for all of us, and getting food supplies for myself. We hadn't discussed food beforehand and I wasn't sure if I should get stuff for them as well or what, but I got myself a lot of energy dense food so I was sure I'd have enough to make it in and back again comfortably without carrying too much weight. Basically a can of tuna for every meal, some mixed nuts and some muesli bars and a 2.5 litres of water. I was a bit worried about the water being sufficient for the heat and the distance, but with the food and the tent my bag was going to weigh a ton already.

'T' and 'A' returned that evening, quite sunburnt and tired, warning me it was going to be quite a difficult hike the next day and checking if I'd gotten food for myself.

We were up at 5:15 the next morning to pack up out stuff we were leaving at the hostel, and get the bus to Carate. A guy with a 4WD ended up offering to drive us there for a comparable price so we went with that speedier option, and were lucky enough to have an Ocelot run across the road right in front of us. A pretty amazing sighting to start the day.

When we arrive and get dropped off at the beach, instead of making a start quickly and trying to get as much of the walk over with before the heat sets in, I find out 'T' has lost his lighter and so is trying to light his cigarette with a magnifying glass, while 'A' starts unpacking and repacking his backpack, leaving me waiting around in full sun for 15 minutes while they fuck around, eventually giving up on the smoke.

After we finally get going we make it maybe 400-500 metres down the back before 'T' decides to stop again in full sun and try again. Not putting up with that shit, I duck up to the tree line and sit in the shade watching the hundreds of hermit crabs and lizards doing their thing, sensibly in the shade.

Eventually we make it to the first ranger station, about 2km in, and check in, after which it is decided we need to have a rest. Keep in mind this is a 20km hike we are attempting to make it to the camping ranger station.

We get going again and are stopped another 5 minutes later because 'A' realises he's left his sunglasses behind. It is like an episode of Fawlty Towers with these guys.

We come to our first water crossing, a small stream no more than 50cm deep. 'T' carefully hops on rocks across it, and make it safely across. I take off my shoes and socks, cross the knee deep water and put them back on again, also keeping my shoes and socks dry. 'A' just trudges right on across in his shoes, with some 16 odd km left to walk that day. I really start to wonder about his common sense, and experience in the outdoors.

After about 6km of fairly intense sweaty hiking, we stop and have a rest and eat something for lunch. After resting for a while 'T' tells me that he and 'A' are going to return back tomorrow because they didn't bring enough food. No fucking shit! Your single tin of tuna, a sandwich, some bananas and a muesli bar each aren't enough for 3 days of intense fucking hiking. Even less so when you started eating them the night before.

I'm pretty mad at this point. My bag weighs a ton because I brought enough food for 3, maybe even 4 days, having factored in the possibility of getting lost and some extra to share, and now it seems like I'm going to carry most of it back if we only stay the one night in there.

After this it starts to really grate on me that 95% of conversion is in French (admittedly I can't say I wouldn't do the same if roles were reversed), and lots of sightings don't get shared with me. I keep telling myself it is better to be with them for safeties sake at least.

As we walk we see some good wildlife. Quite a lot of coati and ant eaters wandering on the forest floor and macaws in the trees overhead.

'T' and 'A' want to stop and rest every half km, but them seem to be in a huge rush in the shade and dawdle along slowly in the sun. WTF?

'A' is constantly stopping to mess around with his waterlogged shoes, taking out the inner soles, turning his socks inside out. Who could have possibly foreseen this would be an issue? Who?!?

After nearly a whole day of walking we come to a big river, at least 20m across, looking fairly deep and fast flowing. There are some other hikers resting with their guide, waiting for the water level to drop. After an hour their guide disappears to check if they can cross somewhere else. He comes back and tells his customers he thinks they they can, and they promptly get up and get moving. I say that I think we should follow them. 'T' agrees. 'A' fucks around for 10 minutes with his shoes so by the time we get moving there's no trace of them. Wonderful!

We head in the direction we saw them go and come out on the beach again, to find them wading through the waist deep mouth of the river, everyone with their shoes and pants off. We follow suit. The current is actually scarily strong but we all make it across safely.

Everyone puts back on their pants, cleans off their feet and puts their shoes on. Except of course 'A', who takes some photos of a stork, and decides now is a good time to wash his white pants in the river (seriously, white pants trekking in the jungle?).

By the time he's ready to go everyone we were following (in the end, about 10 people and two different guides) are completely out of sight. We follow foot prints but they disappear into the dunes with super thick vegetation and stop being at all obvious.

We venture into the scrub a little, and almost right away get split up. I find a promising looking clearing and go back out to the beach to find the other guys.

I find 'A' knee deep in the surf, washing his feet with his shoes off yet again. 'T' doesn't want to head into the jungle without knowing for certain where the path is. The sun is less than half an hour from setting. I regret us not having a guide more than ever at this point.

They want to double back to where we crossed the river to try and find another path. We do. They fail. 'A' takes off his shoes again, just for a change.

Eventually I convince them to follow me into the forest, using the logic that if there's a path there, we just need to head in perpendicular from the beach to find it. Sure enough I come to the path after about 200m of jungle stumbling. We race along it in the face of lessening light from an already set sun, finally coming to the camp as it gets dark! Success!

I put up my tent; it is a plain old dome tent so it is a pretty straightforward, a 5 minute job. When I'm done I notice that the other two are still discussing how the poles should go.

I'm dripping with sweat, every inch of fabric I'm wearing is drenched, so I end up showering in my clothes. Not having expected showers way out here, 20km into the jungle I brought neither a change of clothes, nor a towel. It is a refreshing shower, but the heavy humidity I think it might be a mistake.

I make the decision that I'm not going back the next day. I need to rest and I'd rather risk being solo than have the liability of travelling with these guys. I say goodbye to 'T'. It is honestly a shame to split from him because he's a genuinely nice guy, but I just can't stand 'A'. I say instinctively "it was nice to meet you" when saying goodbye to to 'A' and he actually laughs at me. The arrogant fuck! I definitely made the right choice going my own way; another day with him and I'd probably be on trial for manslaughter.

I got up the next day and head out into the jungle for a walk along some of the paths. I followed the path back to the river to check how difficult it looks to cross early in the morning. It appears infinitely easier to cross at low tide.

I walked on along the path a bit further to investigate any other possible river crossings but I didn't find any. Eventually I came to a fork for the Corcovado trail, the long loop. I know it is the long loop because I have a photo of the map on my phone.

I decided to head up there, and quickly find it becomes a very steep, uphill trail, and not very worn. There's lots of leaves on the ground that don't look like they've had much foot traffic on them so I figure people don't go that way very often. I hope that maybe more animals hang out there.

I managed see some monkeys up in the trees, but they're pretty far away and fast moving but I tried to keep up with them along the path for a while before they eventually disappear.

At this stage the path is almost non existent and heading downhill, but there are ribbon markers tied to trees every so often to mark the trail. I venture on, losing the path a few times but eventually seeing another marker ribbon and continuing on. Thankfully somewhere around here I pulled out my phone to have a look on the GPS just where I was. No signal but the maps are cached at least. More on that later.

I come to a place with two markers right next to one another but no obvious path onward. I push on a bit and find one more marker, but from there I can not find another one. I give up and decide to just go back before I get lost.

I find my way back to the two markers next to one another, but can not see the path back from there. I stumble back up the hill a bit, but there are spider webs everywhere which means:

1. I have to walk through icky spider webs 2. This definitely isn't the way I came

I really start to panic quite a lot that I'm lost and no one knows where I am. Way to go genius! This is how it feels to be that guy from the article in the newspaper who stupidly died lost, alone in the forest.

I blow the whistle on the strap of my bag as hard as I can. Nobody hears it.

In the stupidity that you get in a state of panic, I run up the hill in the hope the path will somehow reappear. It doesn't.

I start to feel pretty hopeless about ever finding the path. I think that maybe I will have to to have to make my own path back towards the beach and hope for the best.

I pull out my iPhone and use the compass to find where I think the direction of the beach is. It seems to be 90º from where I thought I came from, but using the iPhone makes me realise I'd looked at the map on it earlier in the hike, so there's a GPS dot on there that is definitely on the path. I open Google maps and quickly drop a map marker before the location updates so I know where I was earlier. It confirms that up the hill is the way I need to go, so I trudge up there, still without any sign of markers or any path. It is very very steep, not an easy climb at all.

After 10 minutes of stumbling up the steep hill I'm getting close to the map marker and I suddenly I come across something that looks like the path. The immense relief that washes over me is indescribable.

I backtrack back to the fork where I chose the long loop, and continue round the other loop back to camp and decide I'm done with hiking for the day. Heck, I was done for the month, but I still had the 20km hike back out of the park ahead of me.

I have another shower in my clothes, hang my shirt out to dry, and then rest in the shade of the base camp building, and eat some food and read all afternoon. I actually ended up finishing a full book that afternoon; something I haven't done in years.

The next day I woke up nice and early to pack down my tent and get a head start before the heat really started.

When I got to the river it was was at a much lower tide this time. I still hang around next to the river and wait on someone else to cross first, so there's at least someone around if I get swept out to sea. The water is only to my knees this time, but the current is strong enough to knock you down if you lost your footing. Lots of baby steps.

The walk back is pretty long and uneventful. I unintentionally take an alternate route for part of the walk that goes by what looks like both some old rusted mining equipment in the sea, and the remains of a long-ago rusted-away shipwreck, evidence of a large winch and drive shaft and lots of rusted sheet metal.

I saw some really big foot prints on the beach, that I thought might be a big cat, but identifying them against the chart at the last ranger station I think they were the prints of a tapir.

I also saw a Tayra, a black cat like animal with a bears head, wandering along with something in its mouth. I was much too slow to get my camera to get a photo though.

I made it back to the bus station in 5.5 hours, nearly half the amount of time it took to get in. It was far less stressful and there was far less fucking about doing it solo.

At the bus station I had a beer, and met the very unpleasant Canadian ex-pat owner of the store there. He had a whinge at me about my taking off my shoes to try and dry out my sweat waterlogged feet. Then complained that the locals were all filthy and never washed their hands. He just generally whinged a lot, even more than I have in this blog post, and that's a fair bit.

He said he's lived there for 25 years, right on the edge of the park, but he says that only been into the park once. He claims to have seen all the big cats, and that because of that there's no point going into the park. I could not wait to get away from the guy.

I ended up getting a lift back to town with a Swedish couple, Carolyn and Niklas, who had a guide and so weren't stuck waiting for the buses last in the afternoon. They were a really nice couple and I can't thank them enough for rescuing me from the whinger at the shop.

The shower when I get back to the hotel is the greatest moment in anyone's life ever. Being clean and not drenched in sweat is extremely novel and enjoyable.

I spent the evening hanging out drinking beers with Carolyn and Niklas, The perfect way to celebrate not having died alone in the dense Costa Rican jungle!