Costa Rica Trip Report: Day 1 at Bosque Del Cabo

After what seemed like an endless series of airports, flights, and lines of people, our little Sansa plane touched down into the gateway to paradise, Puerto Jimenez. Paradise itself is a rain forest lodge called Bosque Del Cabo. Over the next seven plus days, we hoped for great food, new friends and fantastic wildlife at Bosque Del Cabo. These expectations were met and then some.

As we stepped off the plane and into the welcoming warmth and humidity of the Osa Peninsula we were met by Kevin. Kevin would be our driver and guide for the 45 minute drive to Bosque Del Cabo. We remembered Kevin from our first trip because he was able to find our only sloth sighting of the week as he drove us to the airport on the last day of our visit. So, we know how good of a spotter he is.

As we took off, we told Kevin to be on the lookout for wildlife and we were willing to stop anytime he saw something. He told us about a sloth and some owls that have been seen along the road lately so we hoped that they would still be there. We didn't have any luck in the area frequented by the owls, but we did have better luck with the sloth. Kevin spotted it about 20 feet off the ground and we stopped and got out for the first pictures of the trip:



This is a Two-toed sloth which is much rarer than the Three-toed sloth in this area so we were lucky to see it. After a few minutes we drove on since we were anxious to get to Bosque Del Cabo with enough time to explore before dark. A few of the open fields along the way were teaming with wildlife. We saw five Scarlet Macaws, dozens of Cattle Egrets, White Ibis, a Green Kingfisher and more. The highlight of the drive was this Crested Caracara that took down a Cattle Egret right on the road in front of us.





The rest of the drive was uneventful and the road wasn't quite as rough as I remembered it although my unseatbelted wife in the back seat will argue that point vehemently. I think Kevin's "speedy" driving helped because we caught enough air from time to time to hop over many of the bumps. We did see an Agouti in the grassy area leading up to the lodge and birds could be seen flying in and out of trees. Anxious to start exploring before dinner, we checked in, downed our fruity welcome drinks, and headed to our cabina.

Our cabina, Congo, was just as we remembered it. The view from the deck is amazing and some people could spend a whole week lounging on the deck and by the pool and see a tremendous amount of wildlife. But, we had no intentions of lounging this week so we grabbed some essentials and headed out down the road to find some critters. The best thing about the wildlife at Bosque Del Cabo is that it is truly wild and has no fear of people thanks to no hunting in the area for over 20 years. So, you can get reasonably close especially if you stand still and let the wildlife come to you. Before darkness fell we saw Chestnut-mandibled toucans, a White-nosed coati, a Great Curassow and a small gray ball of Three-toed sloth. The latter two sightings were thanks to Luis, a Bosque Del Cabo employee, who just happened to yell over to us to ask if we wanted to see a Great Curassow and Sloth. Heck Yeah we did!





After the first of many great meals, this one topped off by tiramisu, we decided to get some sleep in lieu of venturing out for a night walk. While our red-eye flight was definitely the way to go since we avoided an unnecessary night in San Jose, we had pretty much been up for close to 40 hours and we wanted to be refreshed for an early start in the morning. So, we headed to our cabina, set our Howler Monkey wake up call for 5:30AM, did a quick bed check (essential in the rainforest to ensure no unwanted guests), and hit the sack.