David's Top 5 In the Osa Peninsula

Corcovado National Park is the most biologically intense place you can visit on planet earth. Not my words, that’s according to National Geographic. The first thing you notice is the green. It’s a green that blankets everything from canopy to floor. The next thing you notice is the noise–and it’s not a bad thing. The forest here is alive: howler monkeys that bellow from the trees. The Toucans are as commonplace as sparrows. The undergrowth flickers and twitches with sunlight and insects. The Osa is a place constantly in motion, a biodiverse city that makes you feel both immense and small all at once. To access Corcovado, a guide is required. We got connected with our guide, Jim Cordoba, through a local resort. His expertise changed how we looked at everything. To explore the park, you can choose a challenging day hike, or a night hike that uncovers an entirely different side of the Osa: snakes, frogs, spiders, and bats.

This peninsula is home to some of the biggest, best gamefish on earth. Billfish, sailfish, yellowfin tuna, marlin, and dorado – you name it. What makes the water here a particular slice of heaven for a professional angler like me is how the ocean just drops off. This means you can pack in-shore and off-shore fishing into a single trip. Rooster fish in the morning. Marlin in the afternoon. We hooked up with Crocodile Bay, a local outfitter. There’s year-round fishing here, but they can help you plan a trip so you’re targeting the right species at the right time.

The only thing I love (almost) as much as fishing is surfing. And the Osa Peninsula is an especially unique surfing destination. A local guide can help you find just the right breaks and take you out to Pavones, a spot on the Pacific side that’s home to the world’s second-longest left-hand wave and accessible by a dirt road or boat. But Osa’s many beaches are great for more than just surfing. Beaches inside the gulf offer calm water for swimming and sun while Pacific-side beaches offer views forever.

Many of Osa’s roads are unpaved and wiry. They snake their way in and out of dense jungle canopies to tree-lined, rutted beach paths where there are monkeys just about everywhere. The primitive road system is a successful attempt to rebuff corporate and tourist development, and they make traveling to many of the area’s waterfalls especially rewarding. With a high-clearance four-wheel drive and a knowledge of these local roads and trails, a guide can get you to the trailheads you’ll need.

If you’re lucky enough to catch your own tuna, then you’re already halfway to the localest of dinner plans. While most sportfishing is catch and release, tuna and dorado (mahi mahi) are great to target for eating. Your boat captain and/or hotel chef will help you prepare your fish for you. We spent a day fishing offshore and hauled in yellowfin tuna that our guide prepared for us and we enjoyed amazingly fresh sashimi right on the beach. And of course there are some great local restaurant options around Puerto Jimenez to check out, too.