Only on The Osa Peninsula
Original Post | 2018
It's our fourth day in Costa Rica. From San Jose, we travel south to the Osa Peninsula, along Costa Rica's southern Pacific coast. We hear of its isolation. For nature lovers and environmentalists, it's paradise. There's really not much else.
There are two routes - the easy Pacific coastal one which is major well-maintained roads, and the more difficult one winding through the central part of the country and its rain forests. Since we're in a car, and driving in foreign countries always pushes our limits at first, we decide to take the easy route, so we'll arrive at our destination before dark. We set our course in WAZE. Twenty minutes into the drive, we begin climbing a mountain.
Yes, we're on the mountain passage. At this point, we had gone too far to figure out where we messed up. Up a mountain and then down, up and down, a cycle that will continue for the next five hours. After our usual driver-in-a-foreign-country-argument, we settle back and let our circumstances play out. Let's see what we see.
Our GPS coverage goes in and out and we wonder what will happen when we lose our navigation completely. We finally realize by the volume of the traffic (from small cars to large 18-wheelers), there is only one road so getting lost might not be an issue. Every mile or so, the paved road is consumed with construction vehicles, repairing the roads from wash-outs and avalanches. Single lanes, stop and go. Just when you think civilization is foreign in this rain forest, a soda emerges from the road side engulfed in a foggy forest. In the middle of nowhere. There seem to be hundreds between San Jose and Puerto Jimenez. Each one, surprisingly with teak wood stools, white tablecloths, rain forest views and touting the coldest Imperial Beer on route. It's cheap food and it's good food.
Puerto Jimenez is our last stop before Osa. With loosely graveled roads, the town is consumed in dust. We are here in March, the end of the dry season (November to late April). Our host tells us to stop at BM (much like a Walmart) for groceries, and to stock up, for returning the 10 miles for forgotten items takes forever. We think nothing of the 10 mile journey until we are on the bumpy, dirt road with many rivers and few bridges; it's not a 10-mile journey we want to do again until we are ready to leave.
As most every building in Osa, it's open air due to the fierce heat. We grab a cart in the BM, wipe the dust away, and find what's quick and easy. Fresh fruit, pineapple, fresh potatoes, coconut, coffee, pasta and sauce, Imperial Beer. As in San Jose, cookies, crackers, cheese - everything is packaged in four piece or eight piece packets. We grab some Chikys (yummy chocolate cookies) wipe the dust from our coconut and we're off.
After the excitement fades and the new wears off - the cool open air casa with walls that open and shut, an outdoor shower, fresh fruit in the trees outside our front door, the ocean 100 feet away, - we are hot as hell. "Unbelievable hot, like Georgia, but suddenly." There is no time to get accustomed to the sweat and sticky heat, so the only thing to do, strip. Showers cool us down for a few minutes. Even with the sun setting at 6 p.m. year round, the darkness doesn't bring coolness. As the howler monkeys scream through the night, I go to sleep with an ice bag between my thighs.
The next morning, we enjoy our french press Costa Rican brew and fresh pineapple. Once we finish, we wash dishes and secure leftovers and put everything away; the howler and spider monkeys sit vigilante, looking for food left behind.
We begin our exploration, and we set out toward the beach. There are three houses between ours and the beach. There is an older couple vacationing in the first house; every March like clockwork, this is home for them. In the next house, women walk up the single flight of stairs with yoga mat in hand. The next house, a family from Canada with teenagers who are eager to ride the waves.
Then, our Jimmy Buffet moment. A sign at water's edge, BAR, pointing toward Martina's. We laugh and realize we have landed in a dream. The tide is out exposing smooth rocks for a few dozen yards from shore. Around the bend, a fisherman's boat. There is no room to the right to skirt the water's edge, so we turn left, passing by rock statues made my visitors and resting places designed with tree trunks as seats. People leave their mark on this solitary place.
Four Macaws fly overhead and we follow. With cameras always at our side, we hope for one of the coveted bird shots. Always traveling in pairs, the birds are looking for breakfast. They land on limbs, and we watch them chewing and dropping parcels. We are not very close and when we move, so do they. We keep our distance so we can enjoy the two pairs.
Sunrise breaks around 5 a.m., and trucks and people begin moving. We learn that business starts early before the heat hits. By 7 a.m., we are walking back, and, as always when I go inside, I head to the freezer, grab a handful of ice cubes and run them up and down my body. Within seconds, they disappear. I am discovering I am a creature of comfort.
Day 2, someone is calling at our front door.
"M'am, for you?" He points to his cycle with a basket on back, filled with meals freshly prepared. "Thank you," I say in a language he obviously does not understand, so I shake my head. "Tomorrow," he says, and jumps on his bike and goes to the next house.
Most evenings, it's dinner and a movie. IF the spotty WI-fi cooperates and doesn't buffer too often, Len can make it through even though a 90 minute movie extends to nearly three hours. We're in our mosquito-net-covered bed by 8 p.m. Sleep comes easy because of the heat; it's harder when the howler monkeys are roaring.
We're only here three days, and we have gone about as far as the island will allow. At the tip of the peninsula we walk the Mantapolo Beach road - their official roads, to us, are nothing more than ditches and dips filled with boulders and sharp rocks. Even with our four-wheel-drive vehicle, we are rattled from side-to-side, and you begin to feel its effects when you wake each morning. We walk Backwash Beach at low tide. It's no place for swimming; the surfers know this as prime waves. Our last night, we discover Lapa Rios, luxury jungle living and labeled by National Geographic as one of the Unique Lodges of the World. Other than sign at the road, you have no clue that 17 luxury bungalows are perched atop a 1000-acre rain forest reserve. So taking advantage of the best of both worlds, we arrive for cocktails and enjoy children from the nearby famed Carbonera School. At sunset, we return home to our holler monkeys and the music sounds wafting from the nightly party at Martina's.
As we're preparing to leave early the next morning, we say that we would have traveled differently knowing what we know having been to this desolate place. We are in Costa Rica for medical treatment and our exploration north and south are intentionally designed to get us out of our comfort zone. We're are not prepared for roughing it, swimming it, walking it.
Our short stay teaches: 1. walking shoes. 2. bathing suits. 3. loose linen. 4. little else. 5. Las Casita, perfect location. 6. Martina's every night. 7. stay longer. 8. gratitude for what is back home. 9. listen to the rocks. 10. hold on.
We will return for more lessons from Osa.
We parked along the roadside, behind a beat-up looking burgundy van at Backwash Beach. It had a FOR SALE sign placed in the window; in front of the van, a tent. As we walked to the beach, we saw these three guys, each with a surfboard, enthralled by what was on their phone. We stayed a bit, then returned to our car. The guys were gone from this spot but had made their way back home - to the van parked directly in front of us. One was asleep on the mattress in the back, the other, inside the tent. The van had a California license plate. The ultimate 4,000 mile road trip.
Martina’s Bar
About 50-feet from La Casita, you'll find Buena Esperanza, known to the locals as Martina's. Art and skulls hang nearby, side-by-side to a liquor selection that rivals any metropolitan bar. Everyone knows where it is because its the only place to find food and drink this side of Puerto Jimenez. She serves the coldest beer. Just ask for one and watch as she reaches deep inside the chest freezer and pulls out a cold one. Granted, it's not the best beer in the world, but when it's this hot and the beer is that cold, your lips have never been so happy.
Tourists drop in to claim rest on the sofas from the dusty road and locals sit at the bar for a quick lunch, but mainly for the cold beer. We meet a ex-pat who has an animal sanctuary on Osa; since he had been here for years, he considers the Osa his home. As with most we meet, he invites us to come see his preserve and meet his rescued animals. Many residents are ex-pats; our Airbnb owner left America years ago and makes Osa her family's home. There are as many Americans and Europeans here as native Costa Ricans.
For more information about visiting Costa Rica and Osa:
General Information: Visit Costa Rica
Our Airbnb La Casita: La Casita: a Playa Carbonera beach house
Luxury ACcommodations: Lapa Rios Lodge
Rental Car from Ssn Jose: Alamo Car rental- easiest rental experience in any country; Heiner Rojas, manager
