Drake's Bay, Costa Rica

Today was a special day of discovery after pulling in to Drake’s Bay, Costa Rica on the Oso Peninsula. Our cruising guides briefly mentioned a lagoon where we could land our dinghy. We anchored after a 30 hour mostly motor ride and ate lunch and were off to find a place to hike. While anchoring, we noticed a high pitched buzzing coming from shore. We motored in to the lagoon and saw small pangas and tour boats moored in front of 3 small docks. The high pitched buzzing was much louder and coming from the trees, we realized. We passed this area and made a left turn up the lagoon . There were only a couple of pangas motoring around and we already felt like we’d accidentally turned up Disneyland’s Jungle Ride. Green Green Green all down to the edges of the lagoon. Vine-covered trees reached their roots down the volcanic rocks lining the water and we were craning our necks to see the tops. The next right turn brought us under a rope and cable bridge slung low across the water. It was a pretty instantaneous decision to find a nook in the rocks, pull the dinghy up into it and start exploring the land on the other side of the bridge. The trail led up and past some remote jungle cabins that as yet have no electricity. The cicadas making the furious singing in the trees (we learned from a fellow hiker, that’s what they were) varied in intensity depending on the thickness of the huge branches overhead.

We felt like we were walking in a jungle paradise. Sweet perfumes from white flowering trees mingled with the moist smell of earth. Broad leafed plants stood between towering, fat trunks traced with vines. Other vines, thicker than my upper arm, twisted down to the ground from the highest branches. Hibiscus bushes with apricot or cherry-colored flowers interspersed with other lower shrubs with variegated leaves. All of this along a path that occasionally opened onto narrow palm-lined beaches broken up by volcanic rock formations and fresh water creeks trickling into the surf. Never once did the cicadas cease, only varying in intensity and tone.