Writings By Location| None More Wet: Four Days at Corcovado | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
Once on the ground, and after voiding all of the heavenly promises we'd made for the last five minutes, we waited for our contact, Chino, to come pick us up and take us on the next leg of our journey. And, of course, it was raining. Chino came and went, then returned again with a bigger van to take us to the riverbank town of Sierpe, 45 minutes away.This ride was no different than most others we've taken in Costa Rica, with the first ten minutes being on pavement, and the rest on rocky, unfinished roads. The only difference was that there were no mountains to speak of around here, so the dirt roads just went straight on for miles at a time, with the scenery only broken up by the occasional driveway between banana plantations.
 |
| Our Porters |
As soon as we got to Sierpe, we were attacked by a minor throng (about 1/3 the size of a major throng) of young children, who quite literally started diving at our luggage in an attempt to earn a tip. Standing behind the kids, and trying his best to corral them, was Carlos, manager of our tent camp. He greeted us, took note of our bags, then instructed the kids to take the proper ones out. They then proceeded to pack our luggage into giant garbage bags, which the children grabbed and carried to the small 16-foot boat waiting for us at the dock.
While we waited, the kids continued to perform a small roadside show for us, by pointing out a tree snake, and having a little show-and-tell with a hercules beetle crawling on one boy's hand. (Actually, it was bigger than his hand.) We had to give them a tip after all was said and done, although giving five 100 colones coins for the seven of them was kind of like throwing five steaks to seven ravenous sled dogs.
It was a one-hour ride on very smooth water, with the usual interesting rain forest scenery along the way, including a detour through some narrow channels of mangrove, usually covered up at high tide. As the rain started to come down, Erin and I put on our rain gear, but Kim realized she'd forgotten to take it out of her pack, now wrapped inside forty pounds of Hefty bag. But Carlos came to her rescue, making her a personalized poncho out of that same material. This man may be living in the forest, hundreds of miles away from civilization, but he sure does know his style.
 |
| River next to Tent Camp |
Eventually, our boat came into a wide-open delta, which separated the river from the Pacific Ocean with several tall rocks and turbulent channels between them. After several attempts to position ourselves in order to pass through the several-foot high waves, we powered across the mildly choppy waters of Drake Bay. Our boat captain navigated the waves so perfectly, speeding up and slowing down with every wave, that we could just as well have been drinking hot coffee the whole time. After half an hour, we landed at the beach of our tent camp, and culminated our journey by crossing a small, knee-deep river separating the beach from our camp, and unpacking in our tent, listening to the rain battering the tarpaulin above us.
