Costa Rica (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Matthew Firestone [183]
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Tours
To fully appreciate the size and topography of the park, it’s worth organizing a boat trip. Travelers recommend the guided tours (2/3/4 people half-day US$35/60/75) that can be arranged through the Hacienda Palo Verde Research Station. The station also offers bird-watching tours (half-/full day per person US$30/38) through the park. Tour operators in San José and La Fortuna run package tours to Palo Verde, but you’ll save money by arranging everything yourself.
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Sleeping & Eating
Overnight visitors should make reservations and must also pay the US$10 entry fee.
Camping (per person US$4) is permitted near the Palo Verde ranger station, where toilets and hot-water showers are available. Meals and box lunches (₡6000) are available at the Organization of Tropical Studies (OTS) research station by advance arrangement.
Run by the OTS, Hacienda Palo Verde Research Station (524-0607; www.ots.ac.cr; r incl meals adult/child per person $65/34) conducts tropical research and teaches university graduate-level classes. Researchers and those taking OTS courses get preference for dormitories with shared bathrooms. A few two- and four-bed rooms with shared bathrooms are also available. The rates for visitors include a guided hike. The research station is on a well-signed road 8km from the park entrance.
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Getting There & Away
The main road to the entrance, usually passable to ordinary cars year-round, begins from a signed turnoff from the Interamericana, opposite Bagaces. The 28km gravel road has tiny brown signs that usually direct you when the road forks, but if in doubt, take the fork that looks more used. Another 8km brings you to the limestone hill, Cerro Guayacán (and the Hacienda Palo Verde Research Station), from where there are great views; 2km further are the Palo Verde park headquarters and ranger station. You can drive through a swampy maze of roads to the Reserva Biológica Lomas de Barbudal without returning to the Interamericana.
Buses connecting Cañas and Liberia can drop you at the ACT office in Bagaces, opposite the turnoff to the park. If you call the ACT office in advance, rangers may be able to pick you up in Bagaces. If you’re staying at the Hacienda Palo Verde Research Station, the staff can also arrange to pick you up in Bagaces.
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RESERVA BIOLÓGICA LOMAS DE BARBUDAL
The 26-sq-km Lomas de Barbudal reserve forms a cohesive unit with Palo Verde, and protects several species of endangered trees, such as mahogany and rosewood, as well as the common and quite spectacular corteza amarilla. This tree is what biologists call a ‘big bang reproducer’ – all the yellow cortezes in the forest burst into bloom on the same day, and for about four days the forest is an incredible mass of yellow-flowered trees. This usually occurs in March, about four days after an unseasonal rain shower.
Nearly 70% of the trees in the reserve are deciduous, and during the dry season they shed their leaves as if it were autumn in a temperate forest. This particular habitat is known as tropical dry forest, and occurs in climates that are warm year-round, though characterized by a long dry season that lasts several months. Since plants lose moisture through their leaves, the shedding of leaves allows the trees to conserve water during dry periods. The newly bare trees also open up the canopy layer, enabling sunlight to reach ground level and facilitate the growth of thick underbrush. (Dry forests were once common in many parts of the Pacific slopes of Central America, but little remains. They also exist north and south of the equatorial rainforest belt, especially in southern Mexico and the Bolivian lowlands.)
Lomas de Barbudal is also known for its abundant and varied wasps, butterflies, moths and other insects. There are about 250 different species of bee in this fairly small reserve – representing about a quarter of the world’s bee species. Bees here include