It happens a lot. It happened to me. Maybe it's happening to you too. The magic of Pure Vida entices you and once you set foot in the Osa, you may never want to leave. It has been called Paradise by nearly everyone who has experienced it’s pristine beaches and magical waterfalls, and wonder-filled primary rainforests. Pre-Colombian cultures, divergent criminals, and modern-day surfers, biologists, and early retirees have called it home. It is also home to over 300 species of birds, and at least that many insects, arachnids, and crustaceans, four kinds of monkeys, and several sizes of cats, as well as numerous other small mammals, and an array of poisonous and non-venomous snakes. It is also the least populated by humans, and the lesser-traveled destination of adventure seekers in Costa Rica.
The Osa Peninsula is located in the Southern Pacific zone of Costa Rica. Corcovado National Park takes up almost one third of the area, comprising more than 100,000 acres of protected tropical rainforest lands. The Golfo Dulce Wildlife Reserve, which protects more than 200,000 acres in private ownership, creating a green corridor for wildlife and the protection of natural resources where many endangered animal and plant species still thrive, covers more than half of the remaining territory. National Geographic has called Corcovado and the surrounding area the “most biologically diverse area on the planet”. It is a place where jaguars still roam the jungles, Scarlet Macaws fly freely about town and beaches, and four kinds of monkeys are found in numbers unmatched in all of Central America. A naturalist's paradise, and an adventurer's dream, a pioneer’s challenge, Outside Magazine calls it..."the last best peninsula."
The Osa Peninsula is one of the planet's wildest and most spectacular regions. The Peninsula is bordered on almost all sides by water. To the east, by the Golfo Dulce, in the west, by the Pacific Ocean, and to the north, by the one of the largest expanses of Mangrove on the planet. It is a tropical paradise lush with spectacular wildlife, deserted beaches, and virgin rainforests. The Osa's unique bio-diversity is made up of eight different habitats including cloud forest and the largest and most exuberant lowland wet tropical forest remaining in all of Pacific Central America and the longest stretch of protected beachfront between Alaska and Chile. It is one of the last remaining wildernesses on the planet. And yet it is very user friendly. Beaches vary from the lake-like placid waters in the upper Golf to world-class surf breaks in Matapalo, to tempestuous shore breaks on the Pacific side. Many of the forest reserves have maintained trails that make the jungle accessible.
A little more remote than other, more developed areas of the country, the Osa is accessible by road; 6 hours drive from San Jose, or by 50-minute commuter flight to Drake's Bay or Puerto Jimenez. Puerto Jimenez is a sleepy town with dirt streets and relatively few cars. Most people walk or get around on bicycles or the few taxis that idle on Main Street. Many of the locals have never ventured out of town further than a relatives’ finca or the rodeo corral, within walking distance of downtown. Puerto Jimenez is considered the capital of the region, and serves the greater portion of the Peninsula with an airport, clinic, schools, post office, gas station, bank, stores, small hotels and lodges, and a pedestrian ferry across the Golfo Dulce to Golfito and the mainland. The major outlying communities are Mogos, Rincon, La Palma, Agujas, Canaza, and Rio Nuevo to the north, and Tamales, Matapalo, Rio Oro, and Carate to the south and west. Drake Bay at the Northwestern corner of the peninsula is accessed best by waterways from Palmar and Sierpe or via mountain roads from Rincon. Four-wheel drive vehicles are most common as all roads off the recently paved highway to Puerto Jimenez are dirt or gravel.
Osa has a growing International community, which serves about 10 percent of Costa Rica’s tourism, as well as a growing residential community, both of Costa Rican nationals and International immigrants and investors. It’s entire population is only about 8,000, including rural beach and mountain communities off the grid. Many residents have utilized the benefits of nature to provide comfort rather than sacrifice nature for comfort. Solar and hydroelectric power, cell phones, and homes utilizing bamboo and palm are common. There is a sense among the pioneers and “settlers” in this frontier land that they are here for a reason: to not only enjoy, but to protect the environment and to create low impact or positive impact on the land. Hence many are buying pastureland and turning it back into tropical paradises with reforestation, Permaculture, or allowing it to go back to weeds, and eventually secondary forests, carving out only that part of the land that they need for simple, but comfortable dwellings and surroundings.
The Osa Peninsula has changed a bit in the past few years, yet it remains, for the most part, an unspoiled wilderness with selective and conscientious development, focused primarily on eco-tourism. The recent interest in Wellness and Transformational Travel, have inspired several locations include spa services and host yoga and other types of retreats. Catch & Release Sport fishing is also very popular in this area, as the Golfo Dulce and open Pacific are teeming with marine life. Cabo Matapalo (quietly) boasts some of the countries best and least populated surf spots.
For more information on off-the-grid properties, and living solutions, retreat and vacation facilities, or any other information on the Osa Peninsula, contact me at adventurosaproperties@gmail.com
|
AdventurOSA Properties 
