Mom and I were very tired from our long series of connections (she had seven flights that day) but the views were so spectacular that for once, I couldn't fall asleep.
Golfito is south and east of San José, but our flight path went slightly west at first, in order to follow the Costa Rican coastline down to our destination.
 |
| The approach to Golfito Airstrip |
Golfito sits on the Gulfo Dulce and is surrounded by steep forested ridges and low, verdant islands. The runway itself sits at the vertex of a deep jungle V. Heliconias bloom along its edges and palms, gingers and massive hardwoods crowd space, making our pilot's smooth landing more impressive.
On the two-hour ride to our house the sun set and thousands of green fireflies phosphoresced in the clearings and pastures next to the road.
The next day, our first full one in the Conte-Pilon-Pavones area, we woke up bright and early to surf at Pilon. A friend of the house's owner loaded our surfboards onto his Yamaha Rhino and I initially took our sole four wheeler while my mother and sister took the fiat. In foreshadowing of things to come, the front wheels of my quad locked not far from the house and I couldn't unlock them or restart the engine for 5 minutes so I ended up taking the quad back to the house and riding in the bed of the rhino.
 |
| Me surfing the long, low break at Pilon |
At the beach we unloaded our boards and did about two hours of good surfing. The breaks at Pilon are extremely long left handers and I had some great rides - probably the best of my life so far! The waves weren't huge and the sets were a bit far apart, but we were almost the only people there.
 |
| The beach at Pilon, |
When we'd finished at Pilon and were loading our surfboards back up for transport to the house my sister's friend noticed four Scarlet Macaws in a
Terminalia catappa tree. They were bright, loud and extremely beautiful and best of all, they were only 15 feet away. Unfortunately my camera was in a separate vehicle that had already departed so I just have the memory to enjoy, and no photos.
After surfing and lunch, my sister and I decided to go for a hike. First we had to ride our quads out past Punta Banco, which was a trip of about 1.5 hours.
On the way we past through Pavones and drove by many seaside trees supporting populations of
Brassavola nodosa. Some of the plants bore spidery white flowers, tinged pink or yellowish, but none were close enough to the ground from me to smell, or properly photograph.
 |
| Rocky shore near Punta Banco. The Osa peninsula is visible in the background |
We parked our quads at the end of the road and set out along the beach on foot. Steep rocky slopes covered in jungle meet the black sand in this area allowing a better view of the canopy than you'd be able to get from within the forest.
 |
| The beach south of Punta Banco |
Again we saw a flock of Scarlet Macaws, but this time they were many meters up in another
Terminalia and they are barely visible in the best photograph I could manage:
 |
| Scarlet Macaw in a Terminalia tree south of Punta Banco |
We followed a little creek up into the forest.
 |
| Jungle creek, south of Punta Banco |
Not far from the beach, a downed treetrunk crossed the creek. On it, I spotted the second group of wild orchids on the trip: some kind of
Pleurothallis I think - I don't know enough about these little plants to be confident of the species.
 |
| Pleurothallis (?) species growing on a downed tree in the creek beed |
We found some other things as well. The broken tip of a Cecropia branch had fallen to the forest floor. When I picked it up to show my sister, the Azteca ants that protected and feed off the shoot when it was still attached to the tree rushed out and started crawling over my hands.
 |
| The broken tip of a Cecropia branch on the forest floor |
As we proceeded up the stream bed things got increasingly steep and increasingly jungly. We started to get worried about the time and how dark it would be when we got home, but before turning back we decided to scout around one more bend.
 |
| Jungle creek south of Punta Banco |
It was a good thing we did, because just upstream we found a cool cascade of water shooting over a mossy cliff.
 |
| Waterfall in a jungle creek, south of Punta Banco |
Near the pool at the base of the waterfall we found a dried mature
Cecropia leaf, big enough to hide our heads.
 |
| Fallen and withered Cecropia leaf |
 |
| My sister, hiding behind the foliage |
And a nest of thumbnail-sized, coral-colored reptile eggs, hidden beneath a rock in the scree at the base of the waterfall.
 |
| Lizard (?) eggs near the jungle waterfall |
Despite being overcast, and shady in the forest, it was still quite hot. So the cool mist form the waterfall was refreshing for us, but problematic for our cameras. The mist collected on our lenses and started to make our photos blurry.
 |
| Marin and me, next to the jungle waterfall |
Eventually we had to climb back down and head home. On the way I noticed a batwing passion vine - no flowers to identify it by, but it was still exciting to see the plant in the wild. As a bonus it had some kind of interesting beetle on it.
 |
| Passiflora growing near a jungle creek |
 |
| Rising tide on the black sand beach south of Punta Banco |
As the sun sank lower in the sky we headed back toward our quads
 |
| Rocky shore south of Punta Banco |
And caught a lovely Costa Rican sunset on our way home.
 |
| Sunset behind the Osa peninsula |
After the sunset we still rode for about an hour in the dark to get home. We arrived muddy and tired but a friend of Marin's had cooked us a hearty and satisfying veggie stew.
