Day 1. Following a 3 day stop over in Miami, and after queuing with 1000's of other angry passengers at a to be "1st world country" international airport, we boarded the American Airlines Boeing 737 to San Jose International airport, Costa Rica. With miraculous views of the blue Caribbean waters, there was a high sense of excitement (and adrenalin) in the air. We both were having the same thing in mind: knowing that within a few hours, we will be hiking through one of the worlds best known rain forests, reported to have the densest population of animals and species in the entire world. We were planning to get to the nearest town to the park entrance namely Palmar Notre. This would allow us to get a taxi (the following morning) to the nearest drop off point to the park. We would then start our 4 day hike through the Corcovado National Park on the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica. Our aim was to make use of public transport whilst travelling internally in Costa Rica, this is due to the low travel fares and most importantly, it gives you the opportunity to experience the culture and the people. Our itinerary was planned on a TIGHT schedule. In fact, it was planned by the minute. For example:

13:25 - Arrive at Costa Rican customs.
14:00 - Take a taxi to the bus terminal located in the town centre
14:30 - Bus departs to Palmar Notre
22:30 - Arrive at Palmar Notre

So... our flight was slightly delayed and after rushing through customs and through the Friday rush hour traffic (with almost every heavy truck driving in the fast lane), we arrived at the bus terminal. We were very "chuffed" with our perfect time management and approached the ticket booth. After a "broken-Spanish" conversation with ticket salesman, it was apparent that the terminal moved to a different location in town. Within a split second I was out of the building and ran towards the nearest taxi outside. I threw our packs in the boot and explained to the driver that he should pretend he is in a movie and we were chased by Arnold Scwacheneger on a Harley. After living over four years in London, I haven seen taxi driving skills like this (not to mention that I was very glad he / us were not seen by traffic police). When we arrived at the terminal, Bus Trapoca to Palmar notre was reversing out of the depot. The taxi driver shouted something in Spanish and the bus driver paused with a "let me consider this for a moment" look on his face. He loaded our luggage onto the bus, and we were able to pay our $10 fare on the bus. We started our 8 hour bus journey through the Costa Rican country reaching altitudes up to 3,400m on very bad roads with extraordinary scenery.

Day 2. We happened to spent Day 1 at a $6 p.p budget hotel called WAH LOK. This place is as far from Chinese as China is from Costa Rica. We did manage to get 7 hours of sleep in, and I felt as fresh as a "fresh cut daisy" - after taking my cold morning shower.

Our taxi driver Alfredo gave in at my $60 offer from starting at $120 for a taxi ride to La Palma. The road to La Palma was "out of this world". Whilst listening to Alfredos favourite albums: 50 Cent and Pink, we drove past 1,000's of acres of forest, banana plantations, and villages.

At our first stop at the Bush Bar at Rio Rincon, it was clear that by the water level of the river, it had been raining quite allot recently. We arrived at the Corcovado Park Lodge (which is more like a brick building with a few tents than a "lodge") near the park entrance. To our luck, the manager was English speaking and advised us not to do the hike due to "wet" conditions. If you ever consider hiking the park from this direction you have to be prepared to cross a river about 20+ times and then take a 2km path that would lead you to the 1st ranger station: Los Patos. The manager advised that some people reported they have crossed the river 32 times this year. The road conditions were really bad and the "drop off" point as advised by the some web sites / guide books was non existent..... My gut feel was that the 1st day of hiking would be more challenging than we thought....

Shortly after Alfredo dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, a local villager on his bike came past and offered to guide us the first half of the way. At first I was sceptic. I am an experienced hiker and have done numerous 5 day hikes in my younger years. The most extreme one would be the Wild Coast (in the rainy season!) in South Africa. This is a steep trial along the East coast which includes 11 full height river crossings with Zambezi and white sharks.

Notwithstanding the above, after crossing the river for the 26th time, I was very grateful we agreed to hire him and gave him something extra. He came in very handy as the last few crossings were so deep that Yolande were getting completely "washed" away. So our strategy was that he would cross first and then me. I would then take my 17,5kg backpack off and cross back to take Yolande's.

The guide and I would then assist Yolande to cross the river. It worked well and we managed to keep the backpacks dry. I was even more thankful when the sign that would lead us to Los Patos, was completely washed away.

We arrived at Los Patos with a warm welcome from Enrique, the park ranger. He offered us one of the best coffees I had in my life: yes, 100% pure Costa Rican cafe.

Los Patos is located in the centre of the Primary rain forest region. The ranger stations have been set up by the government in order to ecologically protect the forest and its animals against illegal poaching, etc. This station offered camping facilities and a shower (cold). The two guys controlling this station really does a good job in the sense of keeping it spotless clean and tidy.

They are the most warm-hearted people I have met during this trip and it is amazing to see how people can be so happy and satisfied with what they have without a money driven and materialistic world. It is unfortunate that I have lost their contact details somewhere along the hike.

After setting up camp and a quick smash with canned sausages, we were "entertained" by the rangers. They chopped up some oranges from a nearby tree and put in on one spot on the grass. We were told to keep quiet (in Spanish), to look and to listen. The Poca's came out after a few minutes and we’ve managed to take a few snaps of them. After a long day of hiking, the oranges seemed quite tasty and I had to stop the show to grab a couple for desert. The best ranges ever. Not your average imported Tesco blunt tasting "mini-me's"....

After applying layers and layers of deet mosquito repellent, we were ready to face the night in the forest.

At night time, the entire rain forest comes "alive". We were amazed by the sounds off all the different animals. It was like sleeping inside a zoo. We were kept awake by some wild cat that was hunting something not more than 150 meters from us. It really sounded 100 times worse than the Blair Witch project. As you have probably made out, I have a South African back ground and having travelled through some of the best known game reserves in Africa such as the Chobe (Botswana), nothing compares to the sounds of nightlife in this Park.

We both didn’t say a word to each other. The only thing we could get out was a bit of nervous giggling. We tried to make out the impression on each others faces, but it was pitch dark. Until today I'm quite happy for that... Eventually the long days hiking got to me and I managed to fall asleep.

Day 3. We were awoken by the shout of Scarlet Macaws flying over the tree tops of the primary rainforest. As we started the packing, unpacking and packing our backpacks, Enrique offered to walk with us to the 1st river crossing. The walk from Los Patos to Sirena is the toughest leg of the Corcovado National Park. The "17km" sign at the start of the walk is the distance from Los Patos in a straight line. I partly suspect that the linear distance was obtained through previous air navigations. This is also clearly evident if one uses the measuring tool on Google earth. The hike is around 27km long and by walking through long stretches of mud with heavy packs, it can be quite exhausting. This is due to the “sucking” effect of the mud. Not only do you concentrate on where to place your foot, but you also waste a lot of energy by pulling your leg upwards when walking through the mud.
So even with a 7am start we experienced high temperatures and humidity’s. There was not a sign of a slightest breeze within the forest - obviously due to the high trees blocking all the wind. Within the first 15 minutes of walking my T-shirt was soaking wet....

Enrique was able to point out some tracks of Jaquars, Tapirs and sorts of interesting species. Along the way we came across monkeys, colourful butterflies, insects, birds, etc. We maintained quite a fast pace, as the last thing we wanted was to walk in this forest at night!

Eventually we said goodbye to Enrique and we were on our own. There were only 2 things I was afraid of: 1. getting lost 2. peccaries. Peccaries are fairly common in this forest. They normally gather in groups of 30+ and can be very aggressive and territorial. Checkout this link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peccary . To hike Corcovado only by yourself (and /or your partner) puts a bit more responsibility on your shoulders than doing it with your mates or in a group. Unless you are spiderman, do not believe the Lonely Planet guide and other money-hungry websites when they tell you to climb in a tree if threatened. As the typical Englishman would say: “what a load of bollocks”. The trees of the rainforest are tall and the branches and leaves are found at the tree tops, battling with each other to get the most of the sun. I carried a type of spray which is used as a defence mechanism against dog attacks, and it worked. More about this later….

We had lunch on a sand bank in the middle of the second river crossing. It is in these times corned beef in a tin tastes at its best. The GPS told us that we had 5km to go to Los Patos. Although we did a lot of training for this hike, my body was telling me that I had just enough petrol left to do another 5km.

Once we reached the other side of the river, it turned into a bit of a nightmare. We were walking through pools of mud, rotten leaves, etc. and moved very slowly. It felt forever. The path was getting worse and it was getting more difficult to follow. It happened… the road forked and both sides were leading into a swamp. Due to the thick canopy there was no signal on the GPS to find our direction. I decided to take a left and walked knee deep through a pool of drift sand for about 50 meters.

There was no sign of a footpath. Not to mention the poor visibility due to the density of the forest in this specific area. We decided to go back to where we first had a clear path. To the right we were facing a river stream which I thought could somehow be linked to the footpath. When we got closer to the stream, we spotted baby crocodiles that were alarmed by our presence. The American crocodiles are different from species that you will find around Africa. The difference is that they feed on fresh water fish, whilst the other crocodiles are trying to survive the harsh conditions of Africa and will feed on most moving things with legs!

While we were walking through the crocodile-nested waters, we could hear loads of them running from us and disappearing into the water. Despite the above, there is something in your head that brings up an image of a crocodile nibbling on your ankle! As we got to the end of the stream it was apparent that the stream washed into the footpath which made it disappear. What a relief it when we got back on track!

Our final 3km to Los Patos was at a snail's pace. It was muddy, uphill and difficult conditions to walk in. On the last stretch from the river I slipped and fell twice and Yolande once. It was tough and I would buy a double Jack and Coke to any person who would ever hike Los Patos to Sirena in the month of November.

Sirena is located 800 meters from the beach in the secondary forest. Around this ranger station you fill find sloth’s, Spider monkeys, white face monkeys, Growling monkeys, tapir’s, Heliconias butterflies, Tamandua anteater’s, the works!

The ranger at this station looked like a growling monkey himself. But again, very kind and helpful. What interested me was that they were running the entire station on photovoltaic fuel cells located at the back of the station. In the wet season, a day’s sunlight would only allow 2 hours electricity per night. But the other appliances i.e. refrigerators obviously run from the energy source permanently.

We cleaned our boots, washed our clothes, unpacked, and only then we chilled out on the front deck. With our feet in the air, we talked about the day’s experience and took in the views and the sounds of the forest. It was getting dark.

In the far distance we spotted a flashlight. At first, I thought: Adriaan, get yourself together. “Stay away from the light!” Ok not really, but the light came closer and we discovered that it was group of people who were obviously running late!

It took me four years, but we could pick up the Cornish accents from a distance. Among them were 2 English girls and a bloke, and a German lady with backpacks twice the size of ours! They were exhausted and cried when they reached camp. They explained how they had to cross a river in the dark and that all of their packs were soaked. They also mentioned that this was the last of the walking business for them.

There are ways to get around Corcovado from Sirena Station, but it will obviously cost you. But with the strongest currency in the world, it didn’t seem to be so much of a problem for them. They decided to not do the hiking, but to get in contact with transporting services in Puerto Jimenez. They happen to find a $120 boat which will pick them up the next day and transport them to a $130 a night hotel in Drake Bay. It was a side-splitting moment and we were laughing in our sleeves. This is where I actually realised how well Yolande did during the day without any (yes ANY) complaining!

After dinner we set up our mosquito nets and were ready to sleep. We were exited about the next leg. It is known for spotting amazing wildlife. Hard rain started at 7pm and continued until the next morning. The sound of the rain against the zinc roof was incredibly calming and most importantly, keeping the mosquitoes away!

Day 4. After breakfast it was still raining. We decided to give it an hour’s wait. An hour came and went and we had no choice but to face the rain. It took a few minutes to

get wet, but once you’re in it, you seem to forget about it. The trial to La Leona is approximately 16km with three river crossings. The trial includes long stretches on the beach and inland – probably a 50/50 ratio. After 14 hours of continuous hard rain, we reached the 1^st river crossing. At this crossing we were blessed with a hatrick: We spotted a tucan, the river was only ankle deep, and it stopped raining!

By the time we reached La Leona, it felt if someone had to be waiting to congratulate us with cheers, medallions and a “been there done that T-Shirt”. This day was the so-to-say final leg of the hike. The next day is basically 1 hours walk along the beach to Carate where we would get a “collectivo” (4x4 taxi) to Puerto Jimenez to catch a flight to San Jose where we would get another 4 hour shuttle service to the Monteverde cloud forest backpackers. (yes, a TIGHT schedule).

Along the beach we saw white faced Capuchin monkeys, spider monkeys, racoons, Iguanas, Lizards, Coati, Chestnut Mandilbled Toucan’s, . When we headed inland, we crossed numerous water streams and if you walk quietly, you spot countless animals.

La Leona is literally 7 meters away from the beach. With miles of deserted beaches, it really is a beautiful place to overnight. Before the hike, I read a few blogs about people passing through this station and it is really true what they say about the ranger: unfriendly. Almost forgot - he was friendly for the first 5 minutes when we arrived. But only up to the point where I didn’t show much interest to a $15 bracelet he was trying to sell me. Trust me; purchasing an over priced bracelet is the last thing you’ll have in mind after a 16km hike.

There are only camping facilities at this station. So after setting up camp, taking a cold shower and getting our dinner ready, my back, legs and arms were in extreme pain.

I was so tired that I couldn’t even remove the crab that joined us on the dinner table. After various requests from Yolande, the crab was still staring, and I was still sit-sleeping-eating. She failed in convincing me that the crab was taking away her apatite - which I found quite hilarious at that point in time. I was to tired and mumbled: “feel free to remove it yourself, I am NOT getting up”….Bed time. I always go with the saying: “never borrow camping equipment from anyone”.

This time around I made an exception to borrow someone’s fancy lightweight blow up mattress. Once inflated, it is approx 450mm x 1700mm.

I was in more pain when I found myself on solid rock 2:15 in the morning hours. Forcing myself to sleep didn’t work. I then rolled onto Yolande’s mattress (also 450mm in width). It was hilarious and painful.

You spend more time to balance yourself on the mattres, but once you fall to sleep, you find yourself rolling off (and then wake the other by trying to shift yourself back on the mattress). In the later early morning hours, we were both irritated and where overwhelmed with different emotions. At first, Yolande started crying (mainly due to 3 days of intense walking) and then we said to ourselves: “imagine someone would take a picture of us right now”. This cracked the ice and Yolande’s tears burst into a cry of laughter. It was dead funny and we could stop laughing.

Day 5. We woke up 4:30am to have a 5:00am start to Carate in order to catch the collective service. Tight schedule….

I was shocked and amazed when I got out of the tent to see the ranger doing gardening in those hours of the morning. Who in the world would do gardening 4:45 in the morning?! Anyway…

With an unfriendly goodbye and 2 missing towels we were advised that the road to Carate would take us +- 1 hour. Again, the Lonely Planet talks rubbish and I will explain later. With an easy stroll we walked for approximately 30 min until we crossed a small river. One could not make out if it’s a river or a stream. So we carried on walking. After an hour I decided to switch on the GPS and according to Garmin, we were back tracking for almost 2 km. Splendid. So back we went and after 20min, there was still no sign of Carate. We then decided to turn around again and carry on to the river shown on the National Geographic map of Costa Rica. The only living thing is the sign that warns you about sharks swimming upwards in the river on high tide. We were backtracking while we were backtracking. How nice. So we decided to turn around for the second time and ask the fisherman for directions at the first river/stream crossing. It happened to be that Carate is located just behind the stretch of palm trees at the crossing. Clearly not visible from the beach and no signs! To our luck, the 4 x 4 collectivo was delayed. But on the other hand, meaning that we would just make or miss our flight from Puerto Jimenez. The locals advised that the rivers were running high and that it took them 4 hours on the previous day.

It was strange to see civilisation after 3 days in the bush. In this little place (too small to call it a village or a town), the first thing I did was to buy a can of coke and Pringles from a shop.

We waited on the porch for the collectivo until 9:30am. Upon arrival, I ran to the driver and immediately started with negotiations. Partly Spanish and English, I managed to explain that we only had 2 hours to catch a flight to San Jose.

He stared into the distance for about 17 seconds and then replied: “Oh Ke”. So off we went on a extremely bad road on twice the normal speed. It was bumpy. Much worse than the dirt road towards Sodwana Bay (the border of Mozambique). And that is BAD. We were told that sometimes the collectivos had to wait 4 hours for some rivers to lower during the rainy season. But the lifted 2.8D 1994 Toyota Hilux did the job without any trouble.

At 12:10 we arrived at Puerto Jimenez. I managed to convince the driver to drop us off at the airport (or in a better description - a landing strip). At 12:13 we arrived at the airport and rushed to the front desk.

With all the effort to be there in time, we had to spend the evening in Puerto Jimenez as the flight was cancelled due to bad weather. We were strongly advised by some websites not to book flights in advance when travelling internally in Costa Rica. But I had more sympathy for the American lady’s who had to re-arrange their international flights from San Jose. We managed to book ourselves into a $10 back packers which was more unpleasant than sleeping on a flat mattress. This was our 5^th night without a hot shower. The place was awful.

Day 6. Our flight was re-scheduled for 7am. On take off, we were able to see the magnificent landscape of the Corcovado national park. As we were leaving this central American deserted area, I was sitting with a wild smile on my face and thinking: We have done Corcovado .....in the wet season......

The taxi's from San Jose to Monteverde are negotiable, but not cheap if you’re only two people travelling. However, compared to London taxi rates, it’s free. We hired a minibus for only ourselves and enjoyed the ”spacious” ride.

The last 30km was also pretty bad. Not “Africa off road” bad, but enough to prevent you from taking an afternoon nap. The locals protested against tarring the road with the aim to keep tourists away. In a way it makes sense as I personally despise a holiday destination infected with millions of tourists with similar nationalities.

Does it work? I don’t think so.

We enjoyed a warm shower and then we entertained ourselves with an afternoon bridge walk and a reptile tour in Selvatura park. We had a quick walk around the shops where I bought some dry underwear.

Due to the intense humidity, it takes weeks for clothes to dry. For example, I positioned one T-Shirt directly in front of a fan in our room the night before, and it was still wet the next morning!

We had dinner at an awesome restaurant in Monteverde. The place is called the Tree house and your table is literally placed on the first floor between tree trunks.

Thereafter we headed back to the hotel and tried to get in contact with friends and family which probably thought we were dead at that point in time. It was quite difficult to concentrate with the drunken freak from Hawaii making insults about South Africa from behind us. When I asked him if he was able to point the country out on a map, he mumbled something about bzzz zz eehfrika. Obviously didn’t have a clue. What surprised me further is that he didn’t know much about Costa Rica either.

What was he doing there? Funnylookingguywithlongdarkhair: If you ever happen to come across this blog, here is a link to the SA website: This will give you a better understanding of the country, culture and most importantly LOCATION: http://www.southafrica.com/

Day 7. The Taxi-boat-taxi service picked us up in front of the back packers. This journey takes you through the monteverde mountain ranges and down to the arenal lake. From there we got on a boat and crossed over to our next destination: The Arenal Volcano. It’s one of the most active volcanoes on earth. At first I thought the photographs on websites are misleading, but the locals advised that one can genuinely see the magma firing out of the peak at night time. The last eruption dated a few years ago and destroyed the village. These days there are hotels and B&B’s popping up like mushrooms which is quite sad as it takes away the whole atmosphere of the place.

From here on it was downhill. We booked ourselves in the Los Lagos hotel. We then headed to the laguna (waterfall) close to La Fortuna. We got back to the hotel and decided that the rest of the day would be “relaxing day”. So we headed to the hot springs. They constructed 5 pools that faces the volcano on different levels (and variable temperatures) on the slope of the mountain. To our disappointment, Arenal was covered in mist. However, I could imagine seeing the lava at night while sitting in the springs with a pina collada!

We had dinner at the hotel’s restaurant. Really good food and located next to the forest with hummingbirds, frogs and some funny looking insects.

Day 8.

Our morning started with a chartered flight from Arenal volcano to San Jose to be in time for our international flight to Miami – Cozumel. This was not a place I would call an airport. There is one gravel runway, a couple of seats under a canopy and that’s it! Not a single sole around. It was getting close to the departure time and with all the frequent cancellations due to bad weather over the last few days, my nerves were in the red zone. Later on a man showed up from somewhere to tell us that the flight is on the way from San Jose. So the 6 seated arrived and we had to do another stop over before we could get to San Jose. I have flown many times in my life and this was the scariest one. It made total sense to me why they do not prefer to fly in nasty weather.
The lady at the American Airlines check delivered the bad news that our flight to Miami was cancelled. All the effort and time management for nothing. We were then given the option with Mexican Airlines as follows: San Jose - Qatamala – Mexico City – Cancun. We accepted. So it turned out that all the flights were delayed with 5 hours at Mexico City.
After a long journey from delays and connecting flights with Mexican tequila we arrived at Cancun. Wasted. Out of all the passengers on the aircraft, I was the only one (yes, the only one) that got stopped for a bag search. I was about to burst into flames. To put the cherry on the cake, the Taxi driver couldn’t find our apartment. We spent the night in a hole somewhere in the western suburbs of Cancun. By the time we went to bed, we have been travelling for 27 hours. I could have travelled to New Zealand in the same time.

Day 9 - 17
We woke up refreshed the next morning and took a ferry ride to Cozumel. We dropped the backpacks at the check in and from here on the relaxation leg of our holiday started. It was a perfect 7 days with endless cocktails, snorkelling expeditions, restaurants and Carribean sunsets. It takes at least 3 days for the average employer to wind down when taking annual leave. One thing I can take back from this and would gladly recommend is to arrange your first week of you holiday to be adventurous. Travels allot, be active, take on challenging stuff and take your mind away from your everyday troubles. The second week is there to wind down and relax. Stay at one place and make time to do nothing. The perfect combination in order to prepare yourself to face the materialistic world with all its challenges, confrontations and instructions for modern survival or perhaps gluttony.