Corcovado Day 2: 17km To La Sirena

I woke up to the rain still coming down gently.  I was surprised how easily I was able to get up to the 4am alarm. After packing up and stocking the water bottles, I set off. Two steps into the hike, I ran into a coati, likely the ¨raccoon¨ from the night before.

It was still dark out as I hiked along the beach silently in the rain. The sun started to come up and light up the clouds when I ran into another coati digging for crabs on the beach. I would run into two more along the way, as well as macaws, pelicans, and capuchin monkeys.

I was told the 17km (10.6mi) hike would take 6 or more hours to complete. The trail was hard to find, so for the most part I stayed on the beach, which was slower and more draining to walk in the sand. Looking at the sub-par map wasn´t much help, and I didn´t ever really know particularly where I was. I beat the tides coming in so I wasn´t pinned against the cliffs getting pounded by waves, found a trail through the trees that I could move quickly on, and eventually reached the Rio Claro, the bull shark and crocodile infested stream dumping into the ocean.

It was maybe 50 yards across and looked deeper than it was. The water only came up to knee height and I didn´t get chomped by anything.

The rest of the trail to Sirena was a breeze, winding through the forest and obstacle-free albeit for a fallen tree at one point. I was getting pretty tired when two big pigs strolled across the trail in front of me, the peccary. Ten minutes later the trail poured out into a field of green grass, freshly mowed. It was the airstrip, and at the end of it was La Sirena station. I had made it in just under 4.5 hours.

What followed next was a (cold) shower and a fat nap. I found out that there was WiFi and phone access and got a little upset that I hadn´t brought my laptop in. But I spent most of the day relaxing on the porch, feet propped up on the railing, listening to music and munching on chips. Then the spider monkeys came.

A whole clan had strolled right up into the trees next to the porch, flying around through the trees and eating leaves. Mothers toted the little ones on their backs, until mom performed a couple stunts that one baby monkey had had enough of, so he jumped ship and was climbing out on his own. He was so funny looking, really small and lanky, arms and legs twice the size of the rest of his body. I got a few good pictures before frustration set in; dead batteries.

Night came around, and again the forest was screaming with the sounds of a thousand creatures. After a dinner and discovering that Tang Horchata is never a good buy, I crawled into my tent and drifted off to sleep.