Earlier this year I was granted a wonderful opportunity to take a sabbatical from my job, working for the Saving Wildcats partnership in Scotland. While I am incredibly lucky to work in the Cairngorms National Park, alongside fantastic colleagues at the forefront of wildlife conservation in the UK, my own time in nature isn’t always guaranteed – I spend a lot of time in the office, classrooms and in meetings! I love my job, and the opportunities that it provides for me to contribute to wildlife restoration in the Scottish Highlands, but the chance to see more of the world, and more nature, was something I had dreamed about for a very long time.
My three-month sabbatical began in Costa Rica, which had been on my bucket-list for years. With some of the most spectacular biodiversity in the world, I had prioritised space in my backpack (yes, I travelled the country with a backpack!) for my birds of Costa Rica field guide, as well as my Leica binoculars (and several other books on wildlife, a snorkel, hiking boots and barely a handful of clothes…).
The country is a bird watcher’s paradise, and I was desperately hopeful that I’d see iconic birds such as toucans, scarlet macaws and at least one of the 50 species of hummingbirds that the country is home to. I sat on the plane poring through the pages of my books, positively twitching to get off the plane and into nature.
I arrived at night, and the sticky heat of the evening, combined with the sounds of San Jose, were exactly the welcome I needed. After a very long sleep at a hotel in the city, my trip really began on the way to Puerto Viejo, a coastal town on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. During the five-hour journey by road, the windows of the minibus were practically hugging the dense jungle, which promised to unearth the wonders of the country in the following days. As if to offer a sneak peak of what was to come, we were briefly blessed by the presence of a white-nosed coati, which made a dash across the road in front of us!
Costa Rica is particularly interesting because of its geographical location, nestled between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Puerto Viejo is on the Atlantic, and has wild waves that smash into sandy beaches, leading into dense jungles, offering gorgeous swim spots and vistas, as well as homes to a lot of wildlife. Packs of brown pelicans patrol the skies, giving the area a distinctively prehistoric feel, and if you look closely past the clever camouflage, you can see the brown throated sloths that fit snugly against the trees, slowly making their way through the canopy.
The area gives quite distinct beach town vibes, but is also a wonderful introduction to Costa Rica, combining the laid-back coastal culture of the country with the promise of abundant nature on the doorstep.
Cahuita National Park is only a half hour drive away – comprised of coral reefs and white sandy beaches, it was a fantastic place to start my snorkelling adventures (albeit with a rented snorkel due to valid biosecurity concerns surrounding my well-travelled and far less professional set-up). Out in the ocean, we were lucky enough to swim alongside nurse sharks, glimpse a Caribbean spiny lobster, and marvel over the abundance of fish species darting their way through the complex and varied reef structures that the coast is home to.
The beaches and jungles are also teeming with life, from cheeky White-headed capuchins that are desperately looking to see if they can steal snacks from unwitting visitors to quieter and stealthier species, such as the eyelash viper (only visible through my binoculars) and my personal favourite, the basilisk lizard, nicknamed the ‘Jesus lizard’ due to species’ ability to gather enough speed to run across water for brief distances.
I was only in Cahuita National Park for a short while, but its vastly abundant wildlife and varied landscapes already had me falling in love with the country. I was desperate to see more of what Costa Rica had to offer, and couldn’t wait to continue travelling around the country, looking forwards to appreciating its rolling hills, coastal vistas and dense jungles teeming with wildlife.