Searching for wildlife in Costa Rica & Panama

We spent 5 weeks in Costa Rica, driving a big loop from the Caribbean to the pacific coast. When we couldn’t handle the heat anymore, we escaped into the high mountains to cool off and spent more than a week in the cloud forests to search for the resplendent quetzal on our own. We hiked up mountains, followed rivers and scanned the trees all day long. A little project that grew on us and we got awarded with some incredible encounters. After our little project, we drove to the Pacific one more time before crossing into Panama, where we headed to the city to prepare for our car shipment to Colombia. 

What's in this update

• Costa Rica
• The Caribbean side
• Central Costa Rica
• The Pacific side
• A project in the cloud forest
• Heading to Panama
• What's next?

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Costa Rica

When you think of Cost Rica, you probably think of pristine beaches, abundant wildlife and a paradise for nature lovers. We did too. We’d expected old growth forests filled with wildlife, people taking care of nature and a country that is “safe” compared to the neighboring countries. Sadly, this wasn’t the reality. Don’t worry, we aren’t going to focus on all the negative aspects here, but want to tell an honest story mixed with the beauty this country still has. 

The Caribbean side

We left San José heading North towards the Caribbean with one specific goal in mind: finding the two sloth species! Basically sloths can be found throughout Costa Rica, but they tend to be easier found on the Caribbean coast. The Caribbean coast of Costa Rica is absolutely gorgeous; white beaches, turquoise water and lush green palm trees. Unfortunately, it is also a rather criminal area as large quantities of cocaine are transported from the Panama border to the city of Límon, a major cocaine-trafficking hub. Frequent robberies occur at the beaches with the use of machete’s or guns, and closer towards Puerto Viejo these even have occurred on campgrounds. So we decided to play it safe and stayed in a house for a couple of nights. During the morning, we would scout for sloths on the dirt roads and would come back in the evening to photograph them in better light (luckily they don’t move fast!). Besides the sloths, a wonderful armadillo found us and crossed the road, we spotted some toucans in the trees, found a hummingbird on its nest and found an electrocuted possum still hanging on the wires above the road.. apparently they really try to eat everything!

Hoffman's two-toed sloth

Brown-throated three-toad sloth

Central Costa Rica

We followed the northern route through the midlands and found some cool tracks to drive on. We slept next to gorgeous rivers where Capuchin monkeys and toucans would curiously watch us from a safe distance. It had been a long time since we’d driven on some off-road tracks, leading through some shallow rivers and where we didn’t see anyone for hours. The quietness and lack of humans also meant we spotted more animals along the way; a few coati’s, kingfishers, jacamars and more. It felt such a relief after all those busy and crowded regions we had traveled through.

One bird we really wanted to see was the Resplendent Quetzal. A rather shy bird that is quite difficult to find and can only be found in specific high altitude areas. We knew there was a specific tree in one of the private reserves, where the chances of seeing it were quite high. So we went into the mountains, paid entry tickets and walked into the forest without a guide. It didn’t took long, before we found the tree, surrounded by 10 guides and around 40 bird watchers. Although it was really great to see this beautiful bird, it was clear that he didn't like all the attention, as he kept trying to hide among the leaves. We waited until most of the tourists had left for lunch so we could enjoy this bird in a bit more peace. As we didn’t really liked the experience, we decided to put a bit more effort into looking for this beautiful bird in the cloud forests later in the trip (more below).

Finally some off-road tracks again!

The resplendent male Quetzal

Before heading to the pacific, we spent a few days in the mountains at a wonderful place with grand views. The owner was very interesting, as he had traded his wealthy life (private planes, mansions with staff, etc) for a little cabin in the mountains to live a minimalistic life in harmony with nature. It reminded us of the conversations we had with people living in the high north, leaving their old lives behind to start a new one off grid. After enjoying the cool mountain air for a few nights, it was time to face the heat again and drive down to the Nicoya Peninsula.

The Pacific side

We thought we had seen our fair share of traffic jams near San José, but nothing was further from the truth. After spending two hours in a traffic jam on the Nicoya Peninsula, where billboard advertisements of million dollar houses were placed above the slums along the highway, we finally reached the Pacific Ocean near sunset. The place reminded us of Cancún (Mexico) that is clearly built for tourists. We slept in the garden of a friendly family who surprised us with a gigantic wireless speaker at sunrise, playing beach bar music tunes. We continued the loop on the peninsula to search for some wild remote camp places and found one gorgeous spot later in the afternoon; under the palm trees, next to the ocean. Unfortunately, shortly after we had arrived we had some people inspecting our car and they didn’t want to leave, let even talk to us. They just sat next to our car, looking at their phones.. It was really weird behaviour and it felt sketchy. As our spot was quite secluded, we didn’t felt comfortable anymore to spend the night there. We moved to a campsite in a beach town and spent the night with some very friendly people there. 

Camping under the palm trees on the Nicoya Peninsula

A fantastic wild camp spot on the Oso Peninsula

Eventually we struck paradise. We drove some corrugated roads and crossed a few rivers when we found a beach filled with crabs. Literally thousands of them! There was a small strip of holiday homes, and we stayed at a place that has become one of our favorite places on the trip so far: a surf school of an Italian owner, with one of the best beachfront spots we’ve seen so far. At our first night there, the place was overrun by ‘halloween crabs’, very colorful crabs that were heading to the beach for mating. They were literally  everywhere, on the walls, on the wheels, in the shower, toilet.. you name it. Under the fool moon, we saw some raccoons hunt the crabs, a very cool sight! We stayed a few days and thoroughly enjoyed our time there. 

A project in the cloud forest

It was now late March, and the temperature had been rising steadily over the past weeks. We were nearing the village of Uvita and temperatures had risen to above 40 degrees C. We really couldn’t stand the heat anymore, so we drove into the cloud forests to a height of 3km where temperatures dropped to around 15 degrees C. It was such a relief. We decided to stay there for a week to search for the resplendent Quetzal one more time, but now on our own and not in a paid reserve. Our plan was to walk twice a day a loop or trail into the mountains, following the rivers to see if we could find this beautiful bird. In the first few days, we spotted a female Quetzal, but had not seen the slightest sign of the male. We decided to change location and walked deeper into the cloud forests.

After searching for 4 days, we found this beautiful male resplendent quetzal somewhere high in the mountains.

A lucky find: the Baird's tapir

We found a trail that followed a river. Suddenly, a gorgeous old male Quetzal landed on a branch 5 meters away from us. He had caught a dragonfly and was curiously watching us. It lasted only 10 seconds, before he took off into the woods. After searching for this beauty for 4 days, we really were ecstatic! The next few days, we returned to this location in the hope to find it again, and we did! Not even that, we found his nesting tree and hid from a safe distance to see him fly by multiple times. We spent three days at this location, and watched him fly past us and doing his thing. As it wasn’t a touristy location, we only met a handful of hikers everyday, making it such a beautiful experience. 

The morning we left the cloud forest, completely satisfied and recharged, Pleun spotted a Baird’s Tapir next to the road. These shy and very endangered animals are very hard to find in the wild and we couldn’t believe our luck. He/she watched us for some moments before it vanished into the forests.. what an experience! This place was by far our favourite of Costa Rica.

Heading to Panama

We had extended our time in the cloud forest several times but now it was really time to leave. With only a week to go before we had to be in Panama City to ship our car to Cartagena, Colombia, we crossed the border into Panama. The rainy season was close, and temperatures reached very uncomfortable levels throughout the day. We drove a few off-road tracks to find some beach spots, spent some nights at a large beach and cleaned everything on our car before we took off to Panama City. But not before we visited the Panama Canal and watched a large oil tanker passing through the locks. 

Watching an oil tanker cross the Panama canal

There she goes!

Panama City is a crowded and very hot city. Everywhere we would go, there would be a traffic jam. The road system is also crazy, resulting us to miss turns and exits regularly. To give you an idea; to go left, you need to drive right. To go straight, you take the left exit, and so forth. It was clear we weren’t build for the Panama road system, and neither was our navigation! 

Preparing the paper work for our car was rather straightforward, but it mostly consisted of being at places very early in the morning (6 am) and lots and lots of waiting. Also, curiously enough, the police inspection places were in the worst part of the city. They were checking the VIN number and documents of our car next to junkies that we literally saw injecting heroin only moments before.. A rather weird experience. After the car was put into a container we were ready to leave Panama and fly to Cartagena, waiting for the car to arrive and start our adventure on a new continent!

What's next?

Colombia, which marks the start of our South American journey! We use our time in Cartagena to figure out our routes and rough plans for the coming months. We’re very excited to explore this continent and hopefully soon ‘vanish’ in the wild again.  

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See you in the next!