Costa Rica (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Matthew Firestone [197]
Make reservations in advance to stay at the research station (2666-5051; dm US$15); eight-bed bunkrooms have cold showers and electricity. Researchers get priority, but there’s usually some room for travelers. Good meals (₡1700 to ₡4000) are available, but you must make arrangements the day before.
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Getting There & Away
The well-signed main park entrance can be reached by public transportation: take any bus between Liberia and the Nicaraguan border and ask the driver to let you off at the park entrance; rangers can help you catch a return bus. You can also arrange private transportation from the hotels in Liberia for about US$20 per person round trip.
To get to the northern Sector Murciélago, go 10km further north along the Interamericana, then turn left to the village of Cuajiniquíl, which has a couple of sodas and a pulpería (corner grocery stores), 8km away by paved road. Keep your passport handy, as there may be checkpoints. The paved road continues beyond Cuajiniquíl and dead-ends at a marine port, 4km away – this isn’t the way to Sector Murciélago but goes toward Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Bahía Junquillal. It’s about 8km beyond Cuajiniquíl to the Murciélago ranger station by poor road – 4WD is advised, though the road may be impassable in the wet season. You can camp at the Murciélago ranger station, or continue 10km to 12km on a dirt road beyond the ranger station to the remote bays and beaches of Bahía Santa Elena and Bahía Playa Blanca.
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REFUGIO NACIONAL DE VIDA SILVESTRE BAHÍA JUNQUILLAL
This 505-hectare wildlife refuge is part of the ACG, administered from the park headquarters at Santa Rosa. There is a ranger station (2679-9692; admission US$10 incl Parque Nacional Santa Rosa US$10, camping per person US$2; 8am-4pm) in telephone and radio contact with Santa Rosa.
The quiet bay and protected beach provide gentle swimming, boating and snorkeling opportunities, and there is some tropical dry forest and mangrove swamp. Short trails take the visitor to a lookout for marine bird-watching and to the mangroves. Pelicans and frigate birds are seen, and turtles nest here seasonally. Volcán Orosi can be seen in the distance. Campers should note that during the dry season especially, water is at a premium and is turned on for only one hour a day. There are pit latrines.
To get here from Cuajiniquíl, continue for 2km along the paved road and then turn right onto a signed dirt road. Continuing 4km along the dirt road (passable to ordinary cars) brings you to the entrance to Bahía Junquillal. From here, a poorer 700m dirt road leads to the beach, ranger station and camping area.
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PARQUE NACIONAL GUANACASTE
Opened on July 25, 1989 (Guanacaste Day), Parque Nacional Guanacaste is the newest part of the Area de Conservación Guanacaste and forms a protected nature corridor that now stretches from the Pacific to the Caribbean coast. The park is adjacent to Parque Nacional Santa Rosa, separated from it by the Interamericana, and is only about 5km northwest of Parque Nacional Rincón de la Vieja. It’s one of the least-visited and most exclusive parks in the country, because tourist access is highly restricted.
A WHOPPER OF A PROBLEM
Although there is a long history of deforestation in Costa Rica, massive clear-cutting of the rainforests (particularly in Guanacaste) intensified during the 1970s. Currently, there is much debate regarding the causes of this wide-scale deforestation, but research suggests that a shift in governmental philosophy likely sparked the event. Specifically, national policies were implemented at the time that promoted increased land use relating to agriculture, wood production, pasture land creation and improved transit infrastructure. It is argued that these initiatives were aimed at speeding up the country’s economic development, especially in response to the decrease in the international demand for Costa Rican coffee.
Clearly, development is a double-edged sword as it’s impossible to argue