Cruising Through Palo Verde Provincial Park
As much as I wanted to go to Costa Rica to surf, there was something else that the country offered that I knew I couldn’t miss out on: a diverse wildlife and ecosystem. Costa Rica is one of the most ecologically diverse places in the world. Though the country is small, there are several different national parks and regions that boast volcanoes, rainforests, jungles, cloud forests and beaches. Each of these areas and regions contain their own unique wildlife.Now, as it turns out, even though Costa Rica is a fairly small country, everything is actually a decent distance away from one another, the excursions through some of the parks and areas take days at a time, and the muddy jungle roads across the country make travelling a slow (and sometimes impossible) journey. If you are in Costa Rica without a return ticket home and have all of the time in the world, then don’t worry, you can take your time cruising around the country, chatting with the local Ticos, and discovering all of the country’s extraordinary gems, but if you are like me and only have a week or two, you may have to pick only a handful of spots.My trip was pretty
so I set up shop in Playa Tamarindo, which one of the country’s best-known surf towns. I travelled there at the beginning of the rainy season, so the roads were still decent, but some of the roads made travelling around the country hard. I checked with the local tour companies to see what they had available. Most of their classic tours, including Arenal Volcano and Monteverde Cloud forest, weren’t running. There was, however, a tour group heading out to Palo Verde National Park. I’d researched Palo Verde a bit before I came, but wasn’t exactly sure what the park offered. I decided to take a break from surfing for a morning, sign up for the trip and see what was living nearby. The next day, a bus picked me up at sunrise.Palo Verde National Park is in the Guanacaste Region of Costa Rica. It is a couple of hours inland from Tamarindo. As we reached the halfway point of the journey towards the park, I started to sense that we were truly heading into the Costa Rican jungle. The tour guide stood up at the front of the bus.“Does anyone have any allergies or medical conditions?” he asked.Everyone looked around the bus. We all shrugged.“Good,” he said, “ we’re going about an hour into the bush from this point onwards, so getting to a hospital will take a lot of time if needed.”I tensed, clenched my seat and stared out the window. The bus thumped over and over and over again along the pitted dirt road. Mountains, produce fields and cactus lined the roadway. The roadway wound into the jungle.As we neared the park, the road curved along the Tempisque River. The Tempisque River is one of the largest rivers in Costa Rica, runs through Palo Verde National Park and, as it turns out, is infested with crocodiles. The tour guide explained during the ride that the locals dive into the river, collect sediment from the bottom to make bricks for building houses, and then load the sediment in a cart that is pulled by oxes back into town. This job has to be done with two people, though, because one person needs to dive into the water to collect sediment, while the other person watches the oxes and the person in the water in case a crocodile appears in the water.We pulled into the park, everyone on the bus piled off, and we all doused ourselves in bug spray. Large trees and vines hung over the brown river. Small passenger boats idled along the small pier. After the bug spray dissipated, our group walked across bridge over the river, stepped onto the pier and climbed into one of the boats. The boat trudged down the Tempisque River.
A few minutes into the cruise, dark spikes emerged in the brown water. Eyes blinked. A crocodile swam alongside the boat.After a moment, the crocodile disappeared beneath the brown water, but soon after wasps swarmed us. And when I say wasps swarmed us, I mean several wasps landed on everyone at the same time (good thing our guide asked if anyone had allergies).The wasps strangely subsided as we ventured deeper down the river. The wildlife, however, continued to unveil itself. As it turned out, our driver was an expert at listening for animal calls, identifying which animal is making the call, and then spotting them hiding in the jungle. The boat veered towards the edge of the river. The driver pointed at the trunk of a tree that hung over the brown water.“Look closely,” our guide said. We all stared at the empty tree.After a moment, our guide pointed out an almost straight line of “x” shapes that marked the trunk of the tree. The line ran for a couple of feet up the bark.“Those x-shapes,” our guide said, “are bats.” We all stared at the now less-empty tree closer. Sure enough, small bats (maybe about twenty of them) lined the tree in a perfect line. I studied the tree, as the boat floated back towards the centre of the river. The x’s blended into the bark. I studied them. How the hell did the driver see those things?The boat continued down the stream. As we floated along, the driver and guide pointed out various birds and animals, such as the Turquoise-browed Motmot, which is the national bird of Nicaragua and boasts a turquoise tailfeather that swings like a pendulum, a Crane Hawk, which has dark black feathers and orange, crane-like legs, howler monkeys, which really do howl, and a Tiger Heron, which kills and eats baby crocodiles.Finally, as the boat crept back towards the dock, our driver veered straight towards the bush. Green vines and plants and trees slithered onto the front of the boat. The bough crashed onto the shore. The driver and guide hopped onto the bough, pushed the brush aside and pointed into the trees. The leaves rustled.The guide waved for us to come over. One at a time, we stepped onto the bough, stood on the edge of the boat and peered into the trees. As I stood on the edge of the boat, green reeds scraped my calves. I peered into the trees. The guide pointed at a branch high above us. I gazed around the branches for a while, studied the dark green leaves and shadows, and then saw a white-faced monkey sitting on a branch.
Yes, this was the classic monkey that Ross owned on Friends. Apparently they are pretty rare to see in the wild, but a whole group of them hung out in front of us, leapt from tree to tree, and shouted as they moved. A few of the monkeys even leapt with babies clinging to their backs. A moment later, all of them disappeared into the dense jungles of Palo Verde.So if you find yourself on a surf trip in Playa Tamarindo and feel the need to get a taste of Costa Rica’s jungles and wild life, I’d definitely say check out Palo Verde National Park. The classic jungle vegetation, crocodile-infested river and seemingly endless amounts of wildlife in varying colors make Palo Verde a truly wild ride.For more content like this, follow me