Costa Rica Ecotourism, Magnificent Corcovado
Interested in Costa Rica ecotourism?
There is a little known gem called Corcovado.
Know of it? No? Well, neither have most other people.
Corcovado National Park (Parque Nacional Corcovado) may be the Amazon of Costa Rica. For good reason. The little park, only 42,000 hectares (about 100,000 acres) in dimensions, is explored on the Osa Peninsula, located along the south Pacific coast of Costa Rica, close to the Panama border and easy to get by car rental Costa Rica.
It’s the largest remaining primary forest present in Central America.
As Christopher Columbus explored the Americas in 1502 he sailed the Caribbean from Mexico south to a stretch of land he called ‘Costa Rica’, the ‘rich coast’. For more than five centuries the name has remained unchanged.
Impressive tropical forests covered the area from the Atlantic to the Pacific back then and there were so many marine turtles that sometimes ships, lost in the fog, located land simply by listening to the sounds of tens of thousands of marine reptiles paddling in to nesting beaches. Costa Rica car rental.
Regrettably, the passing of 500 years hasn’t been kind to either the forests or wildlife and today most of the primary jungles from Mexico to South America have been cut down or simply burned. Providentially, Costa Rica had the good sense to conserve Corcovado.
Columbus never saw Corcovado. The very first Western explorer to view it was Sir Frances Drake.
Remember him? He is the Englishman who demolished the Spanish Armada in 1588 and saved England from Spain. A few years before that dramatic encounter, he landed just north of the Osa Peninsula in a very dazzling bay now named after him: Drake Bay. The bay serves as the gateway to Corcovado.
Even though Corcovado is very little, merely about 20 miles in length and 8 miles wide—-less than fifty percent the size of New York City— it might be, as National Georgraphic relates: the most biologically intense place on the world.
Contemplate the following: They’re 400 various species of birds crammed into this tiny place. Compare that to the 48 continental United States which has approximately 900.
The most significant extant Central America population of the magnificent, but increasingly scarce, scarlet macaws is still here. Costa Rica car hire.
The Corcovado mammal species represent 10% of the varieties of mammals present in the Americas and they are present on just .one ten-thousandth percent of the globe’s landmass. There are also 116 species of reptiles and amphibians and 139 assorted species of mammals.
To put this park’s size in context, it would fit it into American’s Yellowstone National Park upwards of 22 times!
Yet, it hosts 6 different kinds of wild felines, including the impressive jaguar and puma.
For everybody who is a fan of amphibians (I am referring to frogs here) Corcovado is really a prime place to find the glass frog, poison-arrow frogs, and the rare red-eyed tree frog.
Additionally it is one of the few places in Costa Rica you can still see squirrel monkeys.
You might look for fishing bats hunting for fish above the rivers at night. This amazing park is believed to be one of the remaining stands of the Harpy Eagle which is in all probability on its flight to extinction in Costa Rica.
At Corcovado, you will discover kilometer after kilometer of apparently deserted beaches. Apparently because these beaches provide nesting grounds for immense leatherback turtles (weighing more than half a ton), Pacific Ridley, green and hawksbill sea turtles.
Tapirs are common and provide food for ferocious jaguars and crocodiles. The spoor of these large cats are frequently found in the muddy trails surrounding the Corcovado Lagoon and they can also be sighted frequently. Take your camera and stay alert!
Corcovado is without doubt one of the foremost tropical rainforests on earth. On your Costa Rica vacation, you will see why it is called the Amazon of Costa Rica since it is as extraordinary as any rain forest in Brazil, Indonesia, or Malaysia.
Heavy rains fall in the area from April to December so the best time to visit is in the dry months from January to April.
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