Corcovado Part 2: Wet wet wet

We started the first bit of rain forest trail from Los Patos to La Sirena with not a lot of spare time on our hands, since we started at 9.45 AM and the trail is estimated to be an 8 hour hike. The slightest mistake would result in hiking in the dark (since sunset is around 5:30). No matter how bright your flashlight is, the Jungle is probably one of the most scaring places on earth to be moving around in at night. This is when all the creapy insects come out! This is when you get bitten and have no idea what it was. You'd be going frantic, jumping up and down trying to find the invisible bugger, probably still undiscovered by mankind. The doctors would be speculating for ages what caused your nutsack to grow the zise of your head and grow glow in the dark pubes.

Anyway....... The start was bad. I slipped from a stone trying to cross the river, and using both hands to protect the borrowed DSLR (my DSLR and video camera traded owner against my will in Puerto Viejo the weekend before) I hit my knee, and got both of my feet wet. I learned two valuable lessons. 1) Shit also happens in the Jungle. 2) You want to keep your feet dry in the jungle at all cost.

After about 5 km's in we heared a waterfall in the proximity. A huge one... it was the kind of waterfall you do not go to....it will come to you. And it did! It stayed with us for about 3 hours. There was no hiding. We got wetter than a horny mermaid.

But we continued.. and after sogging on until 17:15 we finally arrived at the ranger station. Dinner was served at 17:30 and at 19:00 we layed down on a bug infested piece of antique foam. But we did not care... our legs and feet (or what was left of it) needed rest because we had hiked for almost 30 km's that day. Besides that, there was not much else to do at the ranger station anyway.

Part 3 soon to be posted.

Corcovado Part 1: Ogling down on the rainforest

The colorful twin otter from Nature Air containing me and my brother landed in Drake Bay (from San José) in heavy rains for a 5 minutes layover. I did not mind at all, two thrilling takeoffs and landings in the jungle for the price of one! After dropping some luxury resort saps, we continued to Puerto Jimenez.

I was happy, and could not believe that we where soon be hiking underneath the thick canopy I was now ogling down on. Boy oh Boy... Nature in its purest form was waiting for us... and so of course where the 17 species of deadly snakes. (Three days before I had almost stepped on a bushmaster, barefooted!)

After a good night sleep in La palma, we climbed in the back of a pickup truck to be dropped of at the first of 27 (or so) river crossings that would lead to the first ranger station "Los Patos" the official beginning of the prime rain forest. We arrived there at 9:45. Little did we know that you were not allowed to set course to the next ranger station ¨La Sirena¨ after 10:00, so we were lucky timing wise.

p.s.
Prior to going to Corcovado I googled for some waypoints but found little to none, so I marked some myself while hiking from Los Patos to La Sirena to La leona for sharing. Altough GPS reception is poor under the thick canopy of the rainforest, there are some open spots allowing you to check if you are going the correct way and how far to go still. The trails are very doable without a guide. Take the waypoints and Enjoy your hike.

Waypoints Corcovado National Park Costa Rica.

Los Patos Ranger station

N 08˚34.345'

W083˚30.488'

Old Patos Ranger station (from here it is 17km's to La Sirena)

N08˚34.258'

W083˚31.332'

La Sirena Ranger station

N08˚28.827'

W083˚35.375'

La Leona Ranger station

N 08˚26.860'

W083˚29.312'

Drinking source (on La sirena- La leona trail)

N08˚26.454'

W083˚32.615'

Pulperia Carate (Beer selling point and Stop for the 'Colectivo' for Puerto Jiminez)

N 08˚26.620'

W083˚27.730'

Corcovado Costa Rica....

I have some thrilling news for all my trusty reader(s) (Hi Mom, Dad and Ross!). I shall soon (15 May 2009) be endeavouring a hike in Corcovado park and shall report back on it, right here… on this Blog. YES!

I expect the trip to be of sublime nature….and here is why:

The owner of Mrtico, will be venturing with me ... to explore all posibilities of bespoke and exciting trips to meet demand of its adventereous customers…..and… it is supposibly “the most biologically intense place on Earth" according to the National geographic.

If you are now thinking that you made a big mistake by booking an “el cheapo” two week all inclusive near the red sea with your future ex-wife and your mother in law …. you are right. Even if you have opted for the adventerous ” PADI diving course” for minimizing “quality time”.

I mean ... with the amount of poiseneous snakes, bullsharks, alligators, africanized bees and even pumas and leopards, the chances your mother in law surviving a "Corcovadian" trip are practically nihil.

Luckely, soon you’ll be able to book a similar trip on http://www.mrtico.com/, without the incumbrance of extensive preparations and planning.

To be followed….

Back from Africa!

Proudly we announce that we have made it back in good health (knock on wood for malaria has an incubation period). The car clocked a total of 8600km’s before being handed over to the next owner for a modest wad of CFA’s in the town of Mopti (see pic).

From Mopti we continued our journey to the Dogon country. This region constitutes of a 150km’s long valley, and is mostly visited by trekking around on foot. Since we had jobs waiting in the Western World restricting our time frame, we splashed out and rented an old 4x4 from some greedy local that knew we had more money in our backpack than the local bank in its save. With the old Nissan and Hamidou as our guide, we ventured into the bush, to visit old towns.

First up was Sogho; a town where once in three years (or so the ‘sub guide’ tells us), the boys aging from 8 to 12 have their female part removed from their manly hood in a sacred place, decorated with wall paintings. If any woman in the village hears them shouting, they are banned from marrying a girl from their own town. Luckily the threat of a snakebite is persuasive enough for most of them to suck up the pain, for there is no anaesthetic. During the 25 day healing period, they all learn how to play one of the 1000 instruments for ensuring a successful celebration of a smaller penis at the end of the ordeal.

After that we moved on into the Bandiagara escarpment. Our guide told us exaclty like it descibed on wikipedia: we saw the house where Marcel Griaule wrote his book, we traded respect with the village Hogon's and the jackal devine sandboxxes, so no need to mention it here. Funny detail, we have taken pictures that look almost exactly like the ones posted on wikipedia.

And there it is.... Bamako!

Exactly two weeks after departure from Amsterdam and some 7600 kilometers we have reached our destination. Bamako! It shows that one can actually combine a bit of adventure and the coorporate life. No need for "off the shelf" vacations, or an all inclusive when you have only 3 weeks in between projects.

The last kilomters before rolling into Bamako we pictured ourselves finally resting in a loungechair, in a nice quiet and calm atmosphere, with a cold beer. Hell... we even had a bit of hope for a cosy chat with some lost female backpackers on the side of a pool filled with refreshing blue water.

Instead we found ou that Bamako is a very dusty and bustling city. The sun had started to move to the other side of the world as we cursed the Lonely Planet for not stating coordinates! How is one supposed to find their "pick" when there are no coordinates? Asking for directions always resulted in the same answer "est ce que la voiture est a vendre?". Fortunately good food can be found in Bamako . Unlike in Sevaré , were I was served a chicken with 4 legs and a tale (see pic!).

We ended up in hotel Tamana. Not quite what we had in mind, but looking back it wasn't all that bad... We stayed two nights before fuelling up for the road toward Segou. A nice quiet town on the river Niger (see pic).

Route de l'espoir to Mali

The ridiculous amount of checkpoints on the 'route de l'espoir' to Kiffa messed up our mojo, resulting in an exciting night drive through Mauritania's mountainous scenery. Not an ideal situation I'll have you know, especially with a grumpy police officer on the back seat next to our vodka filled water bottle (heu...of course we'll give you a ride... you do celebrate Ramadan right?!). After dodging “soon to be road kill” for about 2 hours on a pitch black road, we finally made it to the 'phare du desert'. An overly expensive, but fairly decent resting place.

The next morning, after embarking the first passenger of the day (military!), we steered for Mali. The road was crappy, and on some occasions the road spontaineously turned into a river. Only one time did we get stuck in swampy grass while taking a detour through the cattle fields (see pic).

After the never ending border crossing formalities we found ourselves in the objected country... Mali. Major milestone!

We spend the night in Nioro du Sahel. A lovely little town with lovely people and ice cold BEER! (In case you didn know, Alcohol is Illegal in Mauretania). The sky collapsed on us and the families started washing, praying and eating. Everthing was Irie....