Last weekend I decided to see some of the Costa Rican nature so I went to Santa Rosa National Park which is near the border to Nicaragua. Santa Rosa is on the Pacific Coast and preserves some of the last of the dry tropical forest in the Americas. This time of the year the park is at the driest.

The bus dropped me and a very friendly American at the entrance to the park. The main park headquarters and camping grounds is about 7km away, so me and the American had a lot of time to walk and talk. Apparently he came to Costa Rica about 6 weeks ago to help find a good house for his dad to buy and he's been living it up since. Apparently, the best place to party is the town of Jaco. The whole town parties all night long and nobody gets up before noon and the women and drugs are plentiful. He had been trying to save some money so he had been living in the park for the past week and he was more than happy to tell me how great it was and how it's so isolated that he was living like a wild bush man. All in all, it was a very entertaining walk with this 43 year old guy from Virginia.

After reaching park headquarters the American introduced me to his friend, the park ranger, who spoke English quite well. He seemed very proud of his park and mentioned that the President of Costa Rica would visit the park on Monday to commemorate an anniversary of a battle. Also, on Sunday, all the park wardens from across the country would be arriving to get together before meeting the President. At the main camp I saw a couple of different kinds of iguanas and other reptiles hanging around

I then continued my walk on an extremely rugged road 13 km down to the Naranjo Beach. It was mostly downhill and I had my first monkey sighting in Costa Rica. There was a small group of white faced capuchin monkeys who were hanging out in a tree near the trail. I also saw quite a few different kinds of birds, including a couple of parrots. It was getting close to sunset when I reached the beach campground. The beach and Witch's Rock is a world famous surfing mecca and had consistant large curls when I was there. There were only about two or three surfing groups camping there because it is so isolated. The only way to get there is by hiring a boat, or an extremely rugged 4x4. The beach was very beautiful and the water was surprisingly cold. I watched the sunset on the Pacific and camped out. In the night, there were a bunch of raccoons hanging around and they kept peeking into my tent to look at my food.

The next morning I woke up to blisters on my feet because of my new shoes. I hung out on the beach for a while and explored the nearby forest and lagoon where I was told there were crocodiles, but I only found crabs and deer. The 13km walk back to the main camp was extremely painful. Not only did I have blisters, but it was mostly uphill, it was in the scorching hot sun, and I ran out of water. I was thankful when I reached the main camp and was able to sit in the shade and drink the water. During the walk there and the walk back, I drank 6 liters of water. I have never sweated so much. After resting for a couple of hours I headed the last 7 km back to the highway, but I luckily I caught a ride about halfway.

The park was very beautiful despite being almost a desert because it is so dry and I plan to go back to check out some of the other trails, and also to see how it changes in the wet season. Hopefully by then I will have broken in these new shoes.