The Road to Puerto Jimenez

A long trek has brough me down to Puerto Jimenez in the southern end of the country, the Osa Peninsula, where wildlife is about as common as the coconut trees that line the main street.

The journey down here began with an entertaining wait at the bus station in San Jose, where nine individual vendors made their way in the span of an hour selling everything from nail clippers to soda to underwear. The bus station also turned out to be a local arcade (I waited a solid 10 minutes to buy my ticket with no one in front of me because the guy working was busy playing his own arcade games). The station also had a television that happened to be showing a Spanish version of Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel.

Eight hours on the bus wound me through the highest mountains of Costa Rica and back down towards the southern  coast. It rained, no poured, the entire way, which obscured any views and made for a long  ride with a lot of stopping. The bus felt like it would implode at times, or at least lose some important parts as we bumped our way through rocks and potholes at record speeds.

The journey was long, but it was well worth it to visit this small town on the edge of Parque Nacional Corcovado, which sadly, I will not visit due to a lack of time. Today I hit a local beach located at the end of a beautiful 5 km road that was okay to walk down in the shady morning, but almost unbearable in the afternoon. A ice-cold limonada provided a nice relief from the heat.

My travels take me next to Parque Nacional Chirripo in the central mountainous area that follows the spine of the country, where I will (hopefully) embark on a hike 2.5 km straight up the second highest point in Central America. Apparently there is WIFI at the hostel close to the summit (we definitely do not have, nor do we need that in The Rockies), so you may hear from me while I am in the park.

¡Hasta luego!

© Meghan J. Ward, 2009