 Standing on the deck of the ranger station near the beach, Scott took this picture of (left to right) Hugo our guide, the friendly ranger on duty that weekend (I didn’t catch his name), myself, and Dawn. (Click on photos for larger images.)
Hiking Santa Rosa National Park
¡Buenos días a todos!
To say that last weekend was an adventure would be an understatement. I simply cannot describe the experience well enough in words. I thought I was prepared for the hike, but in reality I was just being naive. The rain just wouldn’t stop, and it was hard to enjoy ourselves despite being in one of the world’s best (and last) tropical dry forests. Looking back I can say that I learned a lot from the trip, and I will definitely be better prepared the next time around. Before I relate the details of our trip, I would like to give you a background on my friends that went with me, and on the park we visited, Santa Rosa.
My companions were Scott and his fiancée Dawn, two biology graduates from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. They are intent on attending grad school, and specializing in reptile research. They are actually going to get married here in Costa Rica in December. We have a lot in common, and they are quickly becoming great friends of mine. We were all very interested in seeing sea turtles in the wild, and after a little research online and in our travel guides, we narrowed our options down to a couple beaches. We chose the remote beaches of Playa Naranjo and Playa Nancite, situated on the Pacific coast of Santa Rosa National Park. Surfers flock to these beaches in the dry season to take advantage of some of the best breaks in the country, the best spot being in front of a giant rock pinnacle that juts out of the water just off shore of Naranjo called Peña Bruja, or “Witch’s Rock” (see map). I have to admit I was the one really pushing for Santa Rosa, since we are reading a novel called Green Phoenix in our conservation biology class that recounts the history of the park and how it has become a model for tropical forest restoration around the globe. I’ve already finished the book, and I was eager to see the forest for myself.
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Identify numbers 1–5 above and answer questions below.
6. Where in Costa Rica is Santa Rosa National Park?
7. What is a tropical dry forest?
8. What is Santa Rosa's history?
9. The Acacia tree and ants have a symbiotic relationship (right).
What does that mean? |
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Founded in 1972, Santa Rosa was Costa Rica’s first National Park. It’s now part of the Guanacaste Conservation Area, or ACG. The predominant landscape in the park is tropical dry forest. Santa Rosa was also the site of many important events in Costa Rican history. La Casona, a former hacienda or farm house situated in the middle of the park, was the stage of several of the most important battles ever fought in Costa Rica. (See quiz answer key for more information.)
So, now that you know a little about the park itself, I’ll relate our experiences during our two days there. The road to Playa Naranjo is notorious for being nearly impassable in anything but a four-wheel drive vehicle, so we chose to rent a 2004 Suzuki Gran Vitara for a mere $58/day from Sol Rentacar in Liberia, the capital of Guanacaste province. It had practically every option. However, upon arriving at the park at around 4 p.m. Friday, we discovered that the road was in such bad shape that the park officials weren’t allowing anyone to drive down to the beach. Despite this setback, we decided to get a guide to take us down there on foot Saturday morning. Meanwhile, we checked into our room and unpacked or stuff. The rooms were in decent shape, and were obviously made to house many people. Although the room had four bunk beds in it, we were the only ones there, so we had the whole place to ourselves. There were nice tight fitting screens in all the windows, to keep out the critters, and clean pillowcases and sheets ready for us when we arrived. After circling the building at night, we quickly discovered why the screens were in place; there were dozens of animals on the walls and on the cement walkway that circled the dormitory. This is where we got most of our photo opportunities for wildlife. There were at least 20 geckos and 10 giant tree frogs on our building alone! Not to mention a virtual army of huge Cane toads hopping around the premises, and insects of all different kinds.
 This is the black mangrove swamp we passed through right before getting to the beach, which was even more flooded the next day.
We got plenty of rest that night, and decided to head back to Liberia for supplies with our guide, Hugo. I had realized the night before just how unprepared my companions were when they asked me if I had remembered to bring flashlights! I had brought a headlamp for myself, as well as a small handheld for a backup, and I assumed that they would do the same. After all, the main purpose of the trip was to see sea turtles at night, the most common time for them to come ashore. They bought some flashlights in town, and we all bought some new rubber boots to try and keep our feet dry. Little did we know that we would be crossing two rivers and an estuary on the trail, and our boots would only help hold water in! We also bought enough rations for that night and the next morning. After lunch at the park at 11:00 a.m., we headed out into the rain. The views were amazing, and although it was hard to keep up with Hugo, I managed to snap a couple photos when the rain stopped briefly. The grueling hike of about eight miles through rough terrain wreaked havoc on our feet and took us about four hours. We saw many tropical birds, and several white-tailed deer. We also saw a family of white-faced monkeys cross the path as we neared the estuary.
 These are some of the white-faced monkeys we saw on Saturday.
When we arrived we were introduced to the ranger on duty, and he showed us the rooms we would be staying in. Usually visitors have no choice but to camp near the beach, but Hugo knew the guide and he hooked us up. Although they were in pretty rough shape with plenty of holes in the screens for critters to crawl through, anything beat setting up a tent in a puddle. Much to our surprise, we weren’t the only ones there; we met three surfer dudes from Israel, of all places, who unfortunately did not have the hookup and were staying in a tent that by that time was practically floating. They told us that a park official had driven them down there several days ago when it was drier, and now they were stranded until the weather cleared. We wished them luck. When we scanned the beautiful white sand beach of Playa Naranjo, we saw several turtle tracks that appeared almost like tank tracks. This lifted our spirits, and we were eager to begin our search. Unfortunately, because of all the rain, crossing the estuary to get to Nancite beach was much too treacherous to attempt. Nancite is one of the two sites in Costa Rica were arribadas occur, the other being Playa Ostional farther south. Arribadas are events when sometimes thousands of Olive Ridley turtles come ashore to lay their eggs in a single night. We ate a nice dinner of soup and rice, and then we headed out to the beach (once again in the rain) at around 9:00 p.m. Our guide advised us not to use our headlamps until we found a turtle, since the lights might scare them away. He insisted that the contrast between the light sand and the dark shells of the turtles would be enough for him to find them. Although we couldn’t see a thing, we trusted him since he had done research on the beaches of Naranjo and Nancite for three years. After about four hours of stumbling behind him in the dark without a sign of a turtle, however, we decided to try using our lights. Not ten minutes after we turned them on, I spotted a dark figure lumbering onto the shore! Our guides shouted at us to turn off our lights, but it was too late. She quickly turned around, and went back out to sea. Our hopes dashed, we headed back to the ranger station depressed and exhausted.
 This is the estuary at the point we would have had to cross to get to Playa Nancite. As you can see, it would have been quite the swim through crocodile infested waters. We decided against it. The estuary dumps into the Pacific right in front of Witches Rock.
It poured all through Saturday night, and we dreaded the trip back to our car. Since Scott and Dawn were going on the panama trip, we decided it would be best to leave right after breakfast Sunday. We bandaged up our feet, paid and thanked the ranger, then began the march. The first sign that we were in for the worst was the estuary, not far from the ranger station. When we had crossed it on the way down the night before, the water was barely above the level of our boots. Sunday, the current was much faster, and the water was up to our waists at times. Also, it was at least three times wider than the day before. Much to our dismay, we saw a couple crocodiles basking on the banks that slid into the murky water as we passed. We stuck together, and didn’t see any in the water. After the estuary, it was all uphill. The “road” was now more like a river in itself, and the trek against the current was made much more difficult. When we reached the first river, el Río Paza Salada, our jaws dropped. Saturday the current had been flowing at a lazy pace; when we approached it on our way back, we saw white water. It was obvious that the water was above our heads, and we would have to swim across. We sat dumbfounded for a while, and contemplated our options. We decided we didn’t have enough rations to head back to the beach, and that we should wait to see if the rain would let up. We waited for about half an hour, but the rain only got heavier. The river swelled even higher, and we were forced to start hiking up river. Hugo said he knew this river well, and that it branched farther up. He just didn’t know how far.
 This is the second river we crossed on the way down on Saturday, el Río Paza Salada. It appears rather placid and slow flowing here, but the next day we couldn’t cross here on the way back, and were forced to hike upriver through the forest.
After roughly two miles of trekking through thick tangled vines up and down steep jungle slopes, we finally reached the fork in the river. The smaller of the two branches was rather easy to cross, and narrow enough that we could throw our packs across first to keep them relatively dry. The second branch, however, was still a raging torrent. There were patches of reed grass in the river that we could hang on to, but the last eight feet or so were extremely difficult. Hugo climbed a tree to get to the other side, and then met us at a fallen tree in the river to assist us. It was a harrowing experience, and I am grateful Hugo was there to help us. We then had to hike back to the trail, and continue on our way. I could tell at that point that my feet were going to be very torn up. It was raining so hard the whole time that we couldn’t take any pictures without ruining our cameras. The second river proved much easier to cross, and before too long we reached the Suzuki. Thoroughly beat, we paid for our room, piled into the car and left. We didn’t get back into Puntarenas until around midnight.
 All told, we hiked roughly 20 miles that weekend, not including the beach walk. We later learned that Guanacaste got record-breaking rainfall that weekend, and at the time of this writing they are still having flood problems. Also, as a side note, there was an earthquake farther inland on Monday (that we didn’t even feel here on the coast) and the power was out until Tuesday. The water was also out of commission until Wednesday due to an unrelated incident of a main pipe bursting. Among the many things I learned on this trip, I found it’s a good idea to check weather reports before planning any sort of jungle expedition. I also learned that the term “dry forest” is definitely relative, and that anywhere in the tropics can get hit hard with rain at any time of the year. My blisters have almost completely healed now, and I will be ready to put on some shoes and go to the soccer game Saturday against the United States. I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures, and give a detailed report next week.
Until then, ¡Adios!
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