A real adventure. Water taxi was ‘a bit choppy’ but calmer on return. Very organised with driver arriving promptly. All the staff really helpful and professional and our guide Eduardo was very knowledgable and helpful. Be prepared for a soaking if there is a thunderstorm but you dry quickly. We saw loads of monkeys and just missed a puma. Lunch was delicious. A long day but a great trip
dr_ruthSydney
06 Feb 2023
Corcovado is one of the most remote and biodiverse national parks on the planet. It’s a haven for animals of Central America. We chose to return here after fifteen years to see and photograph the animals. It was two hours by car and two hours by open boat to get there, not totally unpleasant. Along the Sierpe river we hurtled along past mangroves and fields until we reached the open sea. It was a bit bumpier but in good weather, quite comfortable.
We spent a total of four hours in the park with guides, one per seven passengers. They were excellent at finding wildlife to see and before long we were looking at a pair of red macaus.
We had an amazing coati experience with a whole troup, snuffling around us. We had three different species of monkey above us. Not to mention other birds.
The only complaint was that they didn’t warn us about the sandflies. During our lunch by the beach we were eaten by the locals and returned covered in flat red spots which next dat swelled and were really itchy.
If you do this tour go entirely covered. Bug spray probably won’t do anything. It’s really worth the effort, before expanding human interference affects the wildlife.
Overall this was our worst tour experience, and we took lots of tours during our 2 week trip to Costa Rica. The Viator website said pickup from our hotel would be at 6 AM. However, when we contacted the tour operator through Viator to confirm the day before the tour, they told us the pick up is at 5:30 AM. We were there and ready at 5:25 AM, and we waited for over an hour with no information and no contact from the tour company. I tried messaging them and calling multiple times - that went straight to voicemail. Finally at around 6:40 AM, the hotel concierge informed us that someone had called HER (instead of us, for some reason) to tell her that there was an issue with the car and so they had to send another driver. By the time the new driver came, it was 7 AM.
We were driven to the tour destination by a driver who was nice, but I felt slightly unsafe as he didn’t wear his seatbelt (we were in a sedan, not a bus) and kept going around 60 KMPH over the speed limit (whether it was 40, 60, or 80). I imagine he was trying his best to minimize our lateness.
When we got to the place where the boats depart from, it turned out that it wasn’t even clear we could go on with the tour, since our group’s boat left way earlier. So we waited around another hour while the tour operators figured out if we could join the boat of a private tour group - more wasted time. They did give us coffee on the house, though.
Finally, we joined the private tour’s boat and were on our way. The ride was pretty nice, until upon entering the open ocean we were stopped by the coast guard, who wanted the registration papers for the boat. The driver of the boat did not have these papers - he kept saying to the coast guard that everything is in order, but the owner of the boat has the papers, and he’s just the driver. The coast guard and the driver were at an impasse for a few minutes - I was sure that they were either waiting for a bribe or were going to force us to go back. Eventually they did allow our boat to continue.
From this point on, we were passed between different groups/guides. We did get to go on a lovely hike - Corcovado is beautiful and way less touristy than some other parks we had visited. After this, we were given lunch (rice, boiled eggs, make your own sandwich, dessert bars, juices), which was decent - better than what I’ve had on some other tours. Then, we had to go back as the time allotted for our tour was over. We were driven back to our hotel by the same driver.
So, all in all, Corcovado itself was wonderful and the lunch was good, but 3 stars off for making us wait over 2 hours and missing a large chunk of the tour (there was supposed to be another hike in the morning), and making us feel unsafe with the boat registration issue.