Costa Rica #13 - Drake Bay/Osa Peninsula

One weekend we took a little trip to the Osa Peninsula. It was the BEST! We drove a few hours from Jaco to Puerto Jimenez, then took this boat down an Amazon-ish river a couple of hours to Drake Bay. The boat ride was beautiful, but pretty bumpy for the last 20 minutes when we were out in open ocean, surfing the waves to get to Drake Bay. Drake Bay was gorgeous, and there was something so fun about being in such a remote area. 

There is just a tiny, tiny village with a couple dozen houses, a couple of little stores, and a few cabins.

"You're going to fall out."

Our cabin was just a short walk from the beach, but the owner picked us up in his truck.

This was the restaurant at the place we stayed. They had the best hot chocolate!

This is the view from the deck of our little cabin.

We had a private room, but everybody shared sinks/bathrooms/showers. It was so ridiculous brushing my teeth to this view - I couldn't stop pinching myself.

That first night we went on a bug tour. It didn't sound like the coolest thing in the world to do, but Lance was really excited about it. Turns out it WAS the coolest thing in the world to do. It is still one of my favorite nights of my life. Tracie, aka "The Bug Lady", and her husband Gianfranco are bug experts, and have done work for National Geographic. We all put on head lamps and headed out into the jungle. For the next two hours, one of them would find a bug/insect/spider/reptile/whatever and we'd all (6 or 7 of us) crowd around and listen to amazing facts about it, while the other one was up ahead finding the next creature. It was non-stop; we must have seen 50-75 different critters.

Pit Viper, if I remember right.

Tailless Scorpion.

Each bug (or whatever) that she told us about had INSANELY cool superpowers - I had bug eyes the whole time listening to everything. I wish I had a video of the whole two hours.

This is the Trapdoor Spider, which was one of my favorites. She somehow knew how to find their hidden little doors, which they open super fast to snatch prey when they feel the vibrations.

Even with the leaf as a reference, I still can't see the door, even though I have a picture of exactly where it is. Tracie is magical.

The Stick Bug was another favorite.

She picked me to have the bug crawl all over me - I was so stoked! But holy crap that things tickled!

It was so hard not to swat it off while it was crawling on my face! Those tiny little legs were the tickliest thing on the planet.

This is just us walking across a suspension bridge, but I included it to show how spooky it was! It would've been spooky anyway, but just knowing how many zillions of poisonous/dangerous creatures were all around us was pretty intimidating. But having Tracie with us also made us feel plenty safe.

Tarantula!

Can't remember the name of this one, but it's a SUPER dangerous one.

All night she was hoping that we'd find a Bolivian Wanderer (the most deadly spider in the world). We were probably 5 minutes from the tour ending when she finally spotted one - yay! And we got to watch it killing its prey, which was a fun bonus. Basically you're dead within 20 minutes if one bites you. So pretty much I'm never wearing shorts in the jungle again.

Some more pictures from around the cabin. These little fruits are weird and tasty.

This is what the average house looks like in most of the places we were.

The next day we got up bright and early to take a boat ride to Corcovado National Park, one of the most remote parks in Costa Rica, and by far the most biologically diverse.

The boat ride was super long, maybe a couple of hours, all along the coast.

When we got there we went on a tour through the jungle to find cool animals.

This was our whole group - 8, I think.

Golden Orb-Weaving Spider, I think.

I didn't have time to snag a picture, but we saw one of these, a Coati, which was so cool!

He was no Bug Lady, but our guide would tell us really cool things about all the different creatures that we found. This lizard puffs its little gizzard-thingy out when it's trying to attract the ladies.

This little plane just landed right in the middle of the field. It was weird.

It got a bit rainy while we were out, so we tried to dry out our stuff during lunch.

Spider monkey!

Our goal for the day was to see a tapir. Finally, about 6 hours into the tour, our guide started seeing the tracks of a tapir.

We followed the tracks to this river. We saw a crocodile...so I assumed that we would not be crossing the river.

I was wrong. We all looked at him like he was joking when he said we were going to cross. He said, "The crocodiles won't hurt you, and I really want you to see a tapir."

Pretending to not be scared of crocodiles.

Our first glimpse of the tapir! They are so funky looking; kind of like a cross between a pig, a small cow, and an anteater.

Re-crossing the crocodile-infested water.

Awhile later we spotted another tapir! We stayed and watched it for a good half hour.

Having a little watermelon break at the end of the day. Best watermelon ever.

Our guide. I forgot his name.

Exhausted after a long day of trekking through the jungle.

This was my first time sleeping with a mosquito net. I learned my lesson last time I had one but didn't use it (Mexico), and woke up to the biggest grasshopper in the world on my face.