Have you been to Costa Rica yet? The #1 adventure travel destination of Central America is packed with a non-stop string of highlights and activities. Inland you can enjoy cloud forests and volcanoes, on the Caribbean coast you can watch nesting sea turtles, on the Pacific coast you can learn to surf.
Costa Rica has more than 160 parks and conservation areas, covering more than 25% of the entire country! This impressive amount of protected land includes 25 National Parks, of which Corcovado is one. Where is Corcovado? It lies near the extreme southern reaches of Costa Rica, on the Osa Peninsula, far from the usual tourist hangouts. Even those travelling between Costa Rica and Panama tend to bypass Corcovado, missing out on a unique experience that can't be matched anywhere else in Central America. Corcovado is a nature lovers dream, with hiking trails and camping opportunities everywhere, plus more than 100 mammal species, 100 reptile / amphibian species and 350 bird species are found here.
Almost 400km away from the hub of San Jose, Corcovado consists of more than 100,000 acres of nationally protected lands, including an impressive sandy beach on the Pacific that stretches out for more than 30km. To get there by road you need to enter via San Pedrillo, La Leona or Los Patos, which all have campsites available for anyone wanting to get in touch with nature. It is also possible to fly into Sirena Biological Station located within the park or take a boat from Sierpe, across the Drake Bay.
Once there, you'll be rewarded with an unspoiled oasis to explore. Tapirs, capuchin monkeys, jaguars, ocelots, sloths, anteaters and crocodiles are just some of the animals you have a chance of spotting within the park. More than a dozen trails in the park are available, with most of them 1-2km in length. For the more active, adventurous hikers one trail worth noting is the Sirena-San Pedrillo trail that is open to hikers from December to April. It is 25km long, but does not allow camping. The challenging terrain make this a pretty strenuous trek, but it also takes you to some remote, less travelled parts of the park.
Most trails will take your through forests (there are 13 types of forest in the park!), along rivers or up to some isolated waterfalls. A good trail for spotting wildlife is the 10km long Las Marias which starts from the San Pedrillo park entrance area, although you're bound to see plenty of wildlife if you stick to the shorter trails. If you're thinking of heading to Corcovado on your own, make sure you check in and get permits from Area de Conservacion de OSA (ACOSA) in Puerto Jimenez ahead of time! Otherwise....hop on one of the following G.A.P Adventures tours and let us do all the work!!
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