Costa Rica

The Osa Peninsula is one of the most biodiverse places on earth, and Corcovado is the heart of it. Our family has a property being built out there in the rainforest, which sounds idyllic until you actually show up in November.

November is wet season. Wet is an understatement. My sister and I arrived with the kind of confidence that comes from owning land somewhere and having never actually stood on it. I told our property manager, a local who has lived there his whole life, "Oh we'll just walk into our jungle for a bit and check it out." He gave us a look. "No, no... but ok."

We stepped ten feet in. Ten feet. The vegetation was a wall. Everything was soaked. We turned around immediately. "Ok. You were right. We are not doing this."

Manuel Antonio is where you go if you want monkeys, and you will get monkeys whether you want them or not. They will attempt to steal your sunglasses directly off your face while you're lying on one of the most beautiful beaches in the country. It's delightful. Hold onto your things.

Matapalo is a different category entirely. The most beautiful coastal scenery I've seen in Costa Rica, and one of the most dangerous beaches I've ever stood on. I was at ankle depth and the Pacific nearly took me. The undertow and rip currents there are not a joke. Look at it. Photograph it. Do not go in the water.

If you're going to the Osa Peninsula, go in January or February when it's drier. You will still see more wildlife than you've probably ever seen in your life. Monkeys, scarlet macaws, tapirs, caimans, more insects than you have words for. It is spectacular in a way that recalibrates what "nature" means. Just don't underestimate the jungle. It will win.

This is also the trip where Omicron was announced. Our phones lit up at the same time. We were in a small town on the Osa Peninsula, and at that moment the US required a negative COVID test within 72 hours of boarding a flight home. There was one doctor in town who could administer one. One. Our entire ability to get back to the United States depended on a single appointment with a single person in a rainforest town in Costa Rica.

The appointment was fine. We made it. But there was a window of time where it was genuinely unclear whether we would, and that feeling of being very far from home with a rapidly changing situation is something I won't forget. It wasn't actually that difficult in the end. But it had the texture of something that could have gone very differently.