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The Osa Way |
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Osa Conservation |
Top of the morning to ya! As an "enduring enigma" of the Puerto Jiménez/Osa community, I would like to personally welcome you to the most amazing part of Costa Rica. Hands down--except for fancy giant hotels, discos, and casinos--we got it all!. Corcovado National Park is considered the second most bio-diverse region left in the world (National Geographic Magazine), and the crown jewel of the Costa Rican park system. Because of its depth and salinity levels, Golfo Dulce is considered a tropical fjord (according to Jacques Cousteau, it is one of the most pristine fjords left in the world) and the gulf is Costa Rica’s best spot for flat-water ocean kayaking. Right across the Golfo Dulce is the Piedras Blancas National Park, so new, it doesn’t even have rangers living in it yet. What the Osa offers is an adventurer’s dream come true, the most animals in the whole country, a bird-watcher’s paradise with 14 different ecosystems to explore on the peninsula; and the lowest population density. The Osa is the true frontier of Costa Rica; ask people in San José, and you might be told we don’t even have electricity here. We still have deserted beaches to explore, however, many with virgin rain forest as a backdrop.
When I started my tour company, Escondido Trex, in 1992 there were no other tour companies. The place was a backpackers stop on the way to the park. The only thing happening at the time was Bosque de Cabo, still the nicest lodge in the country in my opinion (you will see more animals at the lodge than any other lodge in the country). The Osa was all about adventure and running around finding new places to explore everyday. Most rivers are days of exploration on their own. To me “the Osa way” is about adventuring and exploring different places of this magical region. Every month I will bring you an adventure for the active traveler, from budget-scale to traveling in comfort and style, one full day to several, as much as you like! This month I would like to highlight Dos Brazos, an old gold-mining town on the eastern border of Corcovado National Park and only 12 km from Puerto Jiménez.
Almost anyone can find something of interest in this friendly little town. Dos Brazos was born of the gold carried by the Tigre River and is slowly becoming a tourist destination worthy of mention. Just walking the rivers and exploring waterfalls can occupy days. There is a trail from here leading to the INBIO research station (you need a guide) where insects are collected for research (the Osa is home to over 10,000 types of insects). You can also find gold miners in the river who are willing to explain what they are doing, and will let you help if you ask. During the dry season you can find a guide to hike you from here to Carate through the mountains, though only the physically fit should consider this option. The bird watching is so diverse in this area you can spend many hours and days identifying birds. Just sitting in the river in the heat of the day is reason enough for me to visit friends in Dos Brazos.
For those of you who would like to explore the area more and spend a few days in Dos Brazos, I recommend staying at Bosque del Rio Tigre, the very first lodge to go up by the river. Liz and Abraham, the owners and operators, are incredible guides and the best birders in Dos Brazos. You can also just stop in for the day and let them know you want to do lunch, go off and explore the river on you own for the morning, come back for lunch; and do some more hiking, swimming, gold-panning, or horseback riding in the afternoon. They have beautiful hiking trails for their guests to explore on their own or pay a little extra for a guided tour. They also offer one of the very best horseback riding and gold mining tours that you pay for by the hour (you are welcomed to hike on their trails after a tour even if you are not a guest). The lodge is small and very intimate, and Liz and Abraham treat everyone like friends. Most guests stay longer then expected when time permits!! Bosque del Rio Tigre is on the left fork of the river and can be contacted easiest through CafeNet El Sol, coincidentally the point of departure of the twice daily Dos Brazos bus.
A wonderful way to see Dos Brazos in one day is by bike. You can rent one for a full or half day, and the 12 km are basically flat, a slight incline up on the way to Dos Brazos, so the ride out is a little easier. You can rent good mountain bikes and one gear beach cruisers with baskets from Escondido Trex (located downtown Puerto Jiménez, inside the Restaurant Carolina) as well as from Pizza Rock. On the right fork of the river, you can find affordable lodging with Walter and Monica, a wonderful couple from Germany. In front of their lodge you can also find Jeremy, a young adventurer who is helping buy up a corridor all the way to the park border to help preserve the land and the watershed it contains. He does hardcore hiking tours for more budget-minded travelers, and camping can be arranged for a modest fee (camp sites in the forest!).
The locals in Dos Brazos are very friendly, and just walking around town can be an adventure in itself. The town has an incredible history, having been a thriving gold mining town of around 3,000 before Corcovado was declared a national park and gold-mining, hunting, and logging banned. It is easy to find people in Dos Brazos who have lived there all their lives. The last couple of years have seen a boom in land sales to foreign nationals, so expect to see lots of ex-pats from North America, and Europe running around town as well. When I moved to Puerto Jiménez in 1992, I used to go to Dos Brazos often, and I remember the bird watching being incredible, but never seeing monkeys. Now with all the foreigners buying land and tourism becoming a reality in this little town, monkeys are coming back, and I have friends who have spotted ocelots and margays running through their yards. Dos Brazos is a quite little town worth exploring for the beauty and wildlife it has to offer and to meet people who live in a little town that is still in slow motion.
Tom Boylan is the co-owner/founder of Escondido Trex, You may direct your hate mail to osatrex@racsa.co.cr
Article courtesy of Tom Boylan, Courtesy of El Sol de Osa The Osa Peninsula’s Newspaper |
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