We had always planned to hike into Corcavado National Park at the tip of the Osa to the Sirena ranger station and stay over for a few days marveling at one of the most bio-diverse areas of North America. When I had originally researched it, you could do the hike solo with a little planning. Effective February 1, 2014 all people entering the park are required to have a certified guide. This takes a lot more planning and a lot more money (I looked and most of the guides we found were charging around $500 for two people for the three day hike). So instead of hiking into Corcovado, we decided to get as close to it as we could and do the “poor mans Osa,” seeing as much wild landscape and wildlife as we could before we hit the end of the road at Corcovado.
Playa Pan Dulce
First off, driving on this side of the peninsula is easy compared to the Drake bay side. Much more pavement and a lot less rivers to cross. Our first night here was spent free camping at Playa Pan Dulce in a shaded nook next to the ocean. This was a pretty beach, but not great for swimming so we only stayed a night.
Not many people around to bother us here!
Except this little guy!
Our camp spot on our first night. Not many bugs, no light and far enough from water that the waves did not keep me awake. Pretty good.
The beach was a little rocky and not the best swimming beach, but easy to cool off in.
There were a few very fancy rental homes near these beaches, but not many people. This area is hard enough to get to that there are very few tourists.
Playa Matapalo
We loved this beach! There was so much wildlife that I spent two days watching monkeys and scarlet macaws all around us for hours at a time. I just could not get enough of the monkeys. They are crazy cute and would fly through the trees in large groups with babies on their backs! Matapalo also had a good beach break with crystal blue water and during the mornings we watched surfers brave the strong waves.
The current was the only bad part of this beach, it was very powerful and swimming felt dangerous. After our first night here I texted Toby and Chloe, because we also had a wifi signal on our sim card for some crazy reason, and begged them they to come join us. Chloe goes nuts for monkeys, and we missed the company, so I lured her with promises of crazy wildlife and a homemade Thai red curry.
Hammock in the shade, scarlet macaws squawking overhead, beer in hand. Life is really good.
Reunited at our free beach front jungle camp!
Warning, many animal pics to come…..
Look at the baby monkey sleeping! So crazy cute.
After a while, we figured out the trees that had the fruit the monkeys liked, it made it much easier to spot them.
The little squirrel monkey flying from tree to tree. Total leap of faith. And they never missed!
They were really tiny compared to the spider monkeys. They were in large packs.
The spider monkeys would fly far distances with their little babies clinging to their back.
Look close to see all the scarlet macaws up in the tree. So many of them at this beach.
I saw Sam taking all these pictures of flowers and could not figure out why so many. And then he showed me all his hummingbird pics!
Last type of monkey, I think this is the capuchin. He looks really pissed off at us! There were also howler monkeys, but we only heard them, we did not see any.
Nice surfing waves.
Last beach on the end of this road after Matapalo. Kind of reminded me of the beach in The Goonies.
Playa Carate
The final beach before you arrive at Corcovado park is Carate beach. It is long, wild, rough and beautiful. The drive here was across a few smaller rivers and through jungle. It was a really pretty drive and the road was not bad at all. On this beach there were only a few access points on the beach, so we decided to just drive up and find a place to camp, right on the sand. We were so close to the tide line I was a little nervous, but it all worked out. The four of us tried to swim a few times and were taken on a roller coaster ride in the powerful breakers. This was a very unsafe beach to swim at, but also really fun. Not recommended for anyone but a strong swimmer.
Not sure where you should camp? Just drive onto the beach and pop up the top.
Sam getting water so we could rinse off our feet before we enter the camper, a great solution when the sand is fine.
Toby and me chilling under our awning (that we almost never use). You can see how close we are to the tide line.
Sam on a stretch of endless beach, Corcovado is behind him.
So we did not make it to Corcovado, but we had a pretty amazing adventure!