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San Jose, Costa Rica vacation, travel and tourist information by reviewer Janette Higgins.
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Costa Rica
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Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp
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c/o Costa Rica Expeditions
PO Box 6941-1000
San Jose,
Costa Rica,
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| Phone: 011 506 257 0766 |
| A picture can't capture this place, but you get the idea. |
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Review by Janette Higgins
author of The Best Places to B&B in Ontario: A Selective Guide
Six editions of the book were published to critical and popular acclaim. Janette now publishes her B&B
reviews and holiday reports online.
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Most guests arrive at Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp via small plane and then walk the 45 minutes along the magnificent beach. Their luggage follows in a horse-drawn cart. It’s a novel enough way to arrive at paradise. But we did it differently. There we were bouncing along the ‘road’ and fording streams in the back of an old pick up truck jammed with locals, a couple of back-packers and the three of us. We’d left Puerto Jimenez, the town that launches you into Costa Rica’s eco-rich Osa Peninsula, at 6 A.M. The early morning cool was welcome not only to our haphazard group but to the dozens of large azure blue Morpho butterflies which fluttered alongside for several kilometres. It was a magical portent of things to come.
Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp is the inspired brainchild of American-native Michael Kaye who has since expanded to two other lodges in Costa Rica; one in the Monteverde Cloud Forest and one adjacent to Tortuguero National Park on the isolated northern Caribbean coast (see my review of Tortuga Lodge). Michael started out with a whitewater rafting company which has since expanded into the well-regarded adventure travel company, Costa Rica Expeditions. When planning my trip I was intrigued by his website’s description of the tent camp and had decided to reserve along with a couple of friends.
The preliminaries had suggested that we’d made a good decision but as we walked up from the beach onto the attractively landscaped property we knew we’d made a good decision. This is not just any tent camp. Yes, you have to walk to the shared washrooms but later, as I bathed my face outside in the hammered copper basin and glanced in the mirror with my head framed by palms and the Pacific beyond, the sharing was moot. As for the white and blue tents, they are mostly situated for a modicum of privacy through intelligent use of small ravines and trimmed hibiscus hedges. Each is ten-feet square with a small porch and appealingly furnished with fresh yellow-and-white linens punctuated with the red of fresh hibiscus flowers. Most tents have two single beds but here’s a tip – tents 1 and 11 have double beds and are also fairly close to the washrooms.
After a welcome fruit drink and orientation we settled in and arranged to go with a guide to the tree platform that afternoon. Lunch came first, though – standouts were yummy wedges of Spanish potato omelette and fresh-grilled tuna on skewers. Throughout our three-night stay the food was surprisingly good and it was easy to meet our fellow adventurers because everyone sits together at long tables. Plus the bar opens at 5 P.M. Lots of mixing and mingling and snapping up of hors d’ouvres while the sun goes down and the bats come out – no doubt keeping any mosquitoes in check. By the way mosquitoes were not a problem when we were there in February.
After lunch, we hiked up the hill behind the camp for about an hour through steamy forest (or bosque). We were then very safely hoisted 5 stories up into a tree to a viewing platform. My sharp-eyed companion saw many birds without the aid of binoculars. The most exciting part for me was seeing a pair of scarlet macaws fly by in the wide open valley below us – we could see them from the top! Later, back on the ground, we got to see lots of macaws by craning our necks awkwardly upward but that majestic flight will remain with me as an icon of the Corcovado.
The next day we opted for the packed lunch and hiked the well-marked trail through the nearby Corcovado National Park. The relatively level trail follows north along the beach but is set back into the forest enough to take advantage of the shade. We were in no hurry and stopped regularly to peer at spiders, iguanas, macaws, coatis, monkeys; someone on the trail had even pointed out a two-toed sloth high up in a tree. We stopped to have lunch on a log at the shady edge of a wide rocky beach and watched as pelicans swooped for fish and variously-sized cranes tip-toed about the tide’s meandering edge.
The last evening, as we chatted with other guests, many of whom had chosen to start their Costa Rican adventures at the lodge, we wondered aloud if Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp should have been planned for the end of our trip – we expressed doubt that anything else, wonderfully varied as Costa Rica is, could top it.
The morning of my departure I rose at dawn and went down to the beach carefully bypassing cantaloupe-sized sandhills created the night before by five-inch land crabs which had migrated from the forest to lay their eggs. I turned to face east and snapped a perfect sunrise with a headland jutting in from the left and the Pacific Ocean to the right. Then I turned and snapped the full moon still high in the beautifully subtly western sky. Then it was time to think about heading back to the real world.
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Reviews of Janette Higgins'
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Janette Higgins' reviews
of Ontario's best bed and breakfasts
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Corcovado Lodge Tent Camp, Osa Peninsula
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| Tell your hosts Janette Higgins sent you! |
| E-mail: |
Click Here |
| Website: |
http://www.costaricaexpeditions.com |
| Best to call: |
Business Hours |
| Languages: |
English, Spanish, plus more |
| Season: |
All Year |
| Rates: |
See website for details. As a guideline in February a single would pay $88.86 FAP and if two are in a tent the cost is $65.59 each. |
Currency converter
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| Cards: |
VISA/MC/cash/cheque/travellers cheques |
| Facilities: |
17 tents most with two single beds; rooms 1 and 11 have double beds; shared bathroom facilities; cooling breezes from ocean at night |
| Breakfast: |
Full |
| Location: |
Osa Peninsula on the Pacific Ocean, about a ten-minute along the beach to the entrance to Corcovado National Park |
| Directions: |
From Puerto Jimenez you can either take a small plane or ride in the back of a pick up truck to Carate. You can also drive (4 wheel drives only) if you're prepared to ford 7 streams/rivers |
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