Sept. 28th. 9am, the sun is already high, blasting rays down on my head and this remote beach on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula. It’s hard to believe Jacqui is doing so well in the humidity – she normally hates it.

18kms to go.

We arrive at the ‘park entrance’ 2k into the hike along a perfect beach, our reservation isn’t quite adequate the Parque Nacional Corcovado ranger tells me en espanol. We needed one more confirmation note. You’re kidding me. I keep staring at him. The 11hr bus ride to Puerto Jimenez, the 3hr collectivo ride in the back of a pickup truck through the jungle this morning, the wierd ghost looking spider that almost gave Jacqui a heart attack, and the 2km hike to the park entrance meant we weren’t going to turn around on some bureaucratic technicality. Common sense and compassion prevail and the ranger lets us pass.

We get intimate with the largest preserve of lowland tropical jungle in Central America. It’s my third time doing this $&*! slog. The last time I had bad blisters, Corcovado managed to deliver the most painful experience of my life. But it’s of the most biodiverse places on the planet. The magic of biodiversity and the promise of seeing nature’s evolutionary answers to complex problems is what keeps drawing me back.

The crocodile we see when wading across the 200ft river crossing seems relatively small, and nice. And we aren’t attacked when we come upon several troops of fabled White Lipped Peccaries (endangered, though here they often travel in groups of 300). We had been warned, repeatedly.

Jacqui steps over the flange buttresses of what is likely a species of Fig tree. A [big] silk weaving Golden Orb spider sits idle in the foreground.

Flange buttresses, one of the many mind blowing evolutionary adaptrations found in this neotropical wonderland.

Prunes.

Santa Teresa. One of my favourite places anywhere.

Monteverde, cloud forest.