The Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
The Osa Peninsula is located in South West Costa Rica, with the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Golfo Dulce to the east. It is an area of absolutely stunning natural beauty. As it’s quite far from the airport, and a bit ‘off the beaten path’, people often leave it off their Costa Rica itineraries. But I strongly, strongly encourage you not to because this small slice of the world is a true paradise.
We finished off our time in Costa Rica with a wonderful couple of days on the coast, and could have stayed for weeks. Here are our highlights from our visit.
Day 1 – Beaches and night walks
We started off our stay by checking in to our hotel, El Remanso Lodge – It had a lovely welcoming feel, and made a great stop for relaxing and resting in comfort with views out over the ocean. It’s also family owned and run, so had a really nice feel to it.
Room and terrace views
We decided to take a walk to the beach as many of the local Lodges have access to beach trails. It’s advised not to go barefoot on the beaches due to the snakes in the area, although we didn’t see any. The beaches are spectacular though, and tend to be private, with rock pools, forests, coconut tress and miles of sand. In fact, we only saw two other people as we explored.
And wildlife en-route
In the evening we joined an on-site guide for a night walk at the lodge. No sooner had we set out than the heavens opened, but it was worth it because the rain brings out certain forest night life and we at last we found the Costa Rican green frogs with red eyes, as well as cane toads, a snake and 2 sloths, one of which was climbing back up a huge garlic tree having come to ground to defecate (did you know when sloths poop they excrete about 1/3rd of their body weight!!!)
Snake and a toad on the night walk
Day 2 – Corcovado National Park and Dolphin Watching
The Osa Peninsula is largely covered by the Corcovado National Park, one of the richest and most diverse tropical areas on the planet. It covers nearly half of the entire peninsula and has the largest lowland rainforest in Central America. It’s a total haven for wildlife watching, and is even home to jaguars and pumas – though we didn’t see any (thankfully!). We spent our morning exploring and saw so much wildlife.
Lizards and squirrels along the walk
Our final activity before leaving for home was to go dolphin watching. There are also whales here, but our visit didn’t tie in with whale season though it didn’t matter as dolphins are present in the warm waters all year round. Getting close to them on a boat trip was truly special and a perfect way to end the holiday.
And that brings an end to my posts on Costa Rica. Heading home was really sad, we didn’t want to go back to reality – don’t holidays always feel like a parallel universe!?
