More Corcovado Park

We were having a great time in Corcovado National Park hunting for animals and birds. There was only one problem with the hike. Bugs. Lots of bugs. Big Bugs, little bugs, biting bugs, crawling bugs, slithering bugs, flying bugs and bugs on bugs. My girlfriend was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and the biting flies. She was not having a very good time because of all the bugs. Survivor man did a stint in these same jungles and in an interview someone asked him where the worst place he was ever dropped off to survive in and he answered the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica. My girlfriend was agreeing with him. Surprisingly the bugs were not bothering me at all. I did not even use any bug spray like everyone else was using. I did get bit by one ant that hurt like a son of a bitch but that was about it. My friend though was almost crying. She wanted to go back and get out of this place. Around midday we entered a clearing and there was a building where we ate our lunch. The bugs were not so bad inside the building so we rehydrated our blood drained bodies and then headed back out for the last part of our hike and to then back to the beach where our boat was coming back to pick us up.

This time we saw a large bairds tapir which was interesting to see. We also saw footprints of a big cat stalking around us as we hiked along the trail. We never saw the big cat but the foot prints were only a few seconds old on the path so it was watching us. I wish we would have spotted it but try as we might the big cat was too elusive for us.

When we got back to the beach the breeze was blowing and it kept the bugs away. There were some biting sand fleas but they were not as bad as the bugs in the jungles. We waited for our boat to come and pick us up. While we waited we saw some coatis eating eggs in the sand. They were probably sea turtle eggs that they were finding. I went up to look and sure enough the tell tale half a ping pong ball like egg shells were scattered where the coatis had been feeding. A coati is kind of like a redish raccoon. The coastline was gorgeous except for one thing, even in a place that was as out of the way as we were in, the beach was littered with plastic bags and other debris, mostly plastic that had been washed ashore with the tides. Pollution is everywhere compliments of humankind.

Our boat arrived to pick us up and we waded out to get in it. All of a sudden my foot was on fire. I yelled and ran to the boat and jumped in to see what the hell was the problem. The boat captain quickly opened a bottle of ammonia and poured it over my burning foot. He laughed and told me it was just a jellyfish sting. The ammonia helped to get rid of the jellyfish toxin. It did help but my foot still hurt. It looked like a burn. Over the next two weeks the area where I was stung basically rotted away and fell off leaving a big hole in my foot that took about a month to heal. Such is life.

Back at the hotel we ate another great dinner of mahi mahi and pargo with all the Tico sidedishes like beans and rice, salad, fried plantain, pickled vegies and some bread and of course dessert of cake and ice cream. We all rehashed our day and passed our cameras around looking at each other's pictures. The owner operator of the hotel was a single Costa Rican woman or Tica. She was very entertaining. She kept inviting me back sometime in the future without my girlfriend. That got a few smiles out of my girlfriend. The mosquitoes were thick all through the dinner and my girlfriend wanted to go back to the hotel room and hide out under the mosquito net over the bed. The hotel owner offered her some benadryl for the itching. She took some and we went to the room. The next day was we were planning on a boat trip to go see dolphins and stuff on the ocean and a short fishing time. No bugs out on the ocean I told my girlfriend and she was very happy to hear that. We were heading back to Quepos the next day after that. We crawled in bed and covered up with the mosquito net.