We discovered a new definition for "hot". It's hiking on a beach at noon, on the Osa peninsula. I mean 45 to 50 degrees hot, with high humidity and no wind. This is no exaggeration. We have a thermometer. That's what we did to get to Corovado Park. It was worth it. We took a taxi from the place we were staying, Puerto Jimenez at 4 am and arrived at the beach at 6 am. It was a 21 km hike from there. Both of use felt like a fried egg when we finally arrived 8 hours later. In Sheila's words "you owe me big time for this one". For those who know Sheila , that pretty much sums up what the hike was like, although by the next day when her body temperature was lower she admitted it was a pretty neat experience. It seems we are always on some kind of adventure.
Even before we got to the ranger station (Sirena Lodge) we saw 3 tapir, monkeys (spider, white face, squirrel ) an ant eater, wild turkeys, and a bunch of new birds. We brought some of our own food as they charge $25 for supper and the same for lunch and breakfast. So after eating our quesadillas and sharing the shower with a 4 inch hairy spider (a whole new twist on showering with a friend), we headed to our tent at 7:30 to find it was still 35 degrees. It didn't seem to matter. By 7:35 we were both asleep, or better described as passed out from exhaustion.
At 5 am we were up and on the trail with our guide. I could list all the things we saw that day but it would look like a beerders list which is really boring. But to give you a flavor of what we saw: many Jesus Christ lizards(they walk on water, or more accurately they fly across the water at the speed of light), viper snake, two and three toed sloths, baby hummingbird, incredible forest, and a howler monkey that fell out of a tree. Sounds like a song! I deviate. Crazy, I didn't think monkeys ever fell but I guess it's one of those occupational hazards. Unfortunately he had a broken leg and likely became supper for a jaguar. The park has 2.6% of the worlds biodiversity consequently there was lots of stuff to see.
At one point we found ourselves in the middle of a herd of peccaries (pigs) which our guide told us if threatened will attack and if there are enough of them and few of you, they apparently will kill you. So I noticed our guide picked up a big stick and poked one of the pigs as it got close to me as I was taking pictures. There was a lot of snorting and gruffing, and many of the pigs hackles were standing straight up. But I guess they didn't feel threatened as the kept on going.
And then there were the ticks. Peccary equals ticks. If you don't spray you legs with the green capped OFF, you will be picking ticks off you legs for an hour before going to bed. It's not so bad as these ticks are small, about the size of a pencil lead. Lucky for us our guide told us about the green OFF.
After 8 hours of hiking on that day we were pretty tired again so when our guide told us that there was an opportunity to share a flight out in a small plane the next day, we took that option, because another day of hiking back on the beach might have completely fried my brain, not to mention my feet, legs, and every thing in between. It took 15 minutes by plane to cover what took us 8 hours to hike. What were we thinking? It's only money.
