Parque Nacional Corcovado — Attraction in Puerto Jiménez

Incredible experience with Surcos Tour (our guide Max), just do your research about what to expect and how to prepare to have a wonderful adventure, it's worth it. I will share my experience: Transportation: we drove early (7 am) from San José (we are locals) to Puerto Jimenez. It is very tiring, so we stoped once in Manuel Antonio and again in Parque Nacional Marino Ballena. We arrived in Puerto Jimenez at 5 pm just to have dinner and sleep before the real adventure. Next day the boat left at 5 30 am to Sirena Ranger's station :) The second night was spent in Sirena, and then back to Puerto Jimenez (another 7-8h driving back to SJ, be prepared! or just stay another night in Puerto Jimenez to rest) Clothing: Only pack the necessary when going to Sirena (in my case, I left a lot of thing in the car in Puerto Jimenez, so I re-did my baggage specifically for the park). Day 1 I wore shorts and T-shirt, there is no dock in Sirena so either have your water shoes on or be prepared to wet your tennis shoes/hiking boots (not recommended) or just get off the boat barefeet (which I did). We did a short walk in the morning and then another in the afternoon, I showered once before going to sleep and put on my pijamas (clean short and t-shirt), next day I wore clean clothes for the morning (5 am) walk and then the same clothes after breakfast. I then showered again before leaving the park (since I didnt pack any more clean clothes I wore my pijamas back to Puerto Jimenez :D so maybe consider packing extra clothes for the way back if you want to shower the second day. Overall I wore 4 boxers and 4 pair of socks too. Keep in mind that shoes are not allowed on the station, so you will have to either walk in socks or clean sandals. Food: not allowed in the park, so I only packed a 900 mL water bottle which was enough for me because you can refill in the station and the walks are only 2-3 hours max in the shadow. The food in the station is included (lunch and dinner on day 1, breakfast on day 2), it was typical costarrican food, portions are very good in size considering you are super hungry after the hiking and it was tasty. I also bough coffee and cockies at the little shop for 4$ each which I think is OK. Accesories: super important to bring your own sunblock cream, mosquito repellent, tooth brush/paste, floss, deodorant, soap or bath sponge (because the showers have liquid soap). Plastic bags for storing dirty items, meds, etc. Although most of them are also available in the little shop in case you forget. Remember sprays are not allowed in the park (creams are OK). Guide: just communicate with your guide before hand what are your expectations, what you would like to prioritize, etc so you dont end up in the wrong tour (some people might love watching birds and stoping every 5 min, while others might prefer to walk faster and focus on big animals for instance). Expectation: set your expectation right, this is a national park, not the zoo or a resort. Animals might not show up, the weather might change, and the accomodations in the station are pretty basic. But if you like that sort of experience and you prepare correctely I can guarantee you will have a great...

Worth visiting if you're around BUT watch out for rip-off tour operators. Below is the official price list of one of the operators. Precio Neto is the column you're interested in. We took a really nice tour with these guys (saw a big boa, sloths, passion flower and a host of other interesting animals and plants) BUT were disappointed when they asked us at the end to pay, on top of the official price, the alleged commission that we had agreed to with another tour guide from Manuel Antonio who referred us to Corcovado. That guide did nothing but mention that Corcovado is with visiting and tell his colleagues in Corcovado that we may visit. For that he expected $30/person, which led to a long, unpleasant discussion at the end of the tour because, even with this commission on top of the official price, we were still off the chart of the official price list. Save yourselves the trouble and go straight to the Perla del Sur or another tour operator in Corcovado, instead of arranging tours via middlemen. As for the park, except for the boa and passion flower, we saw no new plants & animals from what we saw in Manuel Antonio, but the landscape in Corcovado is different and remarkable. The guide was fantastic: he took great pics for us...

Such an amazing place! I actually love they just mainly do guided tours. It makes it so it's a little less busy and also people don't ruin the parks. Hah! We stayed at aguilla de osa and did a tour with Gabrielle! Wow! What a knowledgeable guide! He was searching out everything and knew every single sound. We saw so many animals and learned so much about them, the park, and the plant life. This is such a remote gorgeous place. I definitely would love to come back and do more trails there. We saw monkeys- cappuccino, spider monkey, and howler, we saw anteater, turkeys, lizards, macaw, tons of birds, tapirs!!!!!, crocodile, 2 different types of bats and got to swim in a swimming hole by a waterfall at the end! He taught us so much and I am SO grateful! The best part of our tour too coming from aguilla de osa is that we were just with 2 other people. When we first got in (wet landing which is super nice) there was not really anyone else there. When we were leaving we did see groups of others. But we barely ran into others on the path. The other groups were bigger and I was so thankful we had a small tour group. So much diversity in wildlife....