Started From The Bottom, Now We’re In Drake Bay

We flew Sansa Airlines from San Jose into Drake Bay, and were extremely disappointed at the lack of lemon cakes. We were too busy whimpering to capture the approach to Drake Bay Airstrip in photographs, but imagine flying along the shore and making a sudden 90 degree turn and BOOM! you’ve landed on a rocky airstrip in the middle of the jungle. Fortunately, the Drake Bay Airport exudes an air of professionalism that calmed us right down:

We drove about 15 minutes into “downtown” Drake Bay, with our driver electing to ford the Drake River because caulking the tourist van seemed too risky. The expansive town had dozens of dining options if you were an iguana who eats insects, but for humans there was only a pizza place and a seafood place. We ate at the seafood place all 3 nights we were there. Here is the main strip:

We decided to take a hike along the gorgeous jungle/beach coastline, and here are a few pictures that do not even begin to do it justice:

After hiking 5 miles in the 90 degree heat (plus humidity), we were some tired monkeys:

The next morning, we were up at 5 AM to eat breakfast at 6 to wait for a boat that arrived around 7:30 and took us to Corcovado National Park by 9. Costa Rican time is not the most efficient form of time. When we arrived at the park, our boat pulled up to the state-of-the-art dock and we disembarked. Just kidding, our boat actually just stopped in waist-deep water and our guide shouted “everyone out!” This was a recurring theme around Drake Bay, and in 48 hours, we saw a boat beached for a good half hour, 3 tourists get run over by their boats in heavy waves, and countless avoidable injuries (including a cut on Jessie’s foot). But at Corcovado the water was calm, and our exodus was simple:

The next few photos are all the animals that we were able to photograph in Corcovado. Not pictured are dozens more monkeys, countless birds, a submerged crocodile, two coatis, and by Jessie’s count literally a thousand Tiger Spiders who had taken over the Ranger Station and may or may not have been demanding tribute. Most adorably, we saw multiple monkeys with babies on their backs:

Our guide went through a whole elaborate process to take us in groups of 2 or 3 back into the deep jungle where there was a sleeping tapir, only to come across a fully awake one less than 5 minutes later:

We believe this was the last plane of humans fleeing the tiger spiders who had taken over the ranger station:

Our guide told us that there are 19 different deadly poisonous snakes in the world, and 18 of them can be found in Corcovado National Park. So we definitely felt good about that.

Corcovado Park is apparently home to over 3% of the entire planet’s biodiversity, but most importantly, they have adorable little pigs!

After overloading our metaphorical plates with turf, we decided we needed a little surf to balance us out. The next morning a different boat got reasonably close to shore and we ran out, jumped in, and rode to Cano Island for some snorkeling:

Underwater, courtesy of Jessie’s GoPro, we saw hundreds of fish, but also each other:

The highlight of the snorkeling was watching a turtle rise out of a school of fish, swim between us to get some air, hear the news about the tiger spider uprising, and swim right back down under his school of fish.

Longtime readers will know that at this point, we can’t complete our post without a photo of a beach bum cat:

And since we heard that we were causing distress to certain Bernadoodle friends of the blog, we want to assure you all that there are many dogs all over the world as well:

– Phil

Location:Bahia Drake, Costa Rica