Sunrise haze over a forested slope, tall trees standing into the light.

The Place

Cahuita

The walk

The walk to the beach

Cross the road, then the path. Eight hundred metres, under canopy the whole way. You will hear the howlers before you see anything.

A path through tropical understory, a vine-wrapped trunk in the foreground.

Palm trees leaning over the sand where jungle foliage meets the shoreline.

The Beach

Playa Grande

Palm trees lean out where the jungle stops. This is the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, not the Pacific. The sand is dark, the water warm.

Dark sand at the jungle's edge, palms and driftwood under a grey sky.

Nearby

Cahuita National Park

The park begins where the town's street ends. The community has run it with the national park service since 1998. Entry at Kelly Creek is a donation, not a fixed price.

The journal has more on the gate that asks.

The animals

What moves in the canopy

Howler monkeys start at dawn, a roar that carries long before anything moves. Sloths keep to the high branches, easy to miss until someone points one out. Toucans cross between crowns, loud before they are visible.

A sloth curled on a high branch, seen from below. — Three-fingered sloth. Hoffmann's two-fingered lives here too.

A headland above a beach at low sun, the sea going pale to the horizon.

Golden hour

Before dark, the water and the sky turn the same colour.

Dusk comes fast this close to the equator, around six all year. The beach empties before the light is gone. The heat lets go last, once the sun is down.