We jumped on a short 50 minute flight on Sansa Airlines from San José to Puerto Jiménez then a 30-minute speedboat transfer to reach Playa Cativo Lodge on the edge of Golfo Dulce in Corcovado National Park. We are literally in the middle of the jungle with no road access. Just us and the Mantled Howler monkeys, the white-throated Capuchin and the Spider monkeys. If you’ve never heard a howler monkey, it’s quite the experience. They’re most active at 5 PM and 5 AM and sound like a pack of mad dogs! Above us soar the colourful long-tailed Scarlet Macaws, which can live 50 years, and which were once nearly extinct—-we were told there were more pet Macaws in New York City than in the wild in Central America. Today it’s illegal to capture & cage wild Macaws and since 2005, isolated populations of Scarlet Macaws in Corcovado and Carara National Parks have expanded into healthy flocks the entire length of the Pacific coast. 600 species of birds call Costa Rica home. The magnificence of tropical bird life is astonishing! 16 parrot species occur in Costa Rica and a little known fact is that they are considered the most intelligent of birds with a brain-to-body ratio even comparable to that of primates. Toucans are also in abundance here, and while we don’t consider ourselves avid bird-watchers, it’s awesome to watch these animals in the wild. Today we trekked through the jungle with our guide to catch the best glimpses of the wildlife. At night we slept to the sounds of the surf, and the symphony of the reptiles & the bird-sized insects! Mother Nature at her best.
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