Supermarket Wildlife

When you dream so much, sometimes you end up disappointed. And that’s what happened to me on my trip to Costa Rica.

I know I’ll attract criticism, dislike, and maybe even insults, but I can’t help but share what was a very contradictory experience for me, that left me with conflicting feelings and emotions.

Let’s start with a certain fact: Costa Rica is a beautiful country, with kind and welcoming people, a richness and variety of life rarely found elsewhere, abundance of National Parks, and unique species.

So? What’s wrong? Let’s take a step back. When I planned my trip to Costa Rica, I started with what I found most attractive and interesting: the local Wildlife and its incredible variety and diversity. I researched, I planned, I watched a lot of video contents, I read. In short, I prepared myself, as always. As you plan, research, and organize, you’re presented with dream scenarios for a Wildlife Photographer: smiling Sloths everywhere, always posing for you, the rarest and most colorful Birds always within your sight, let alone your zoom, Jaguars appearing before you at every opportunity, Pumas, Ocelots, every kind of animal present in that blessed land, at your disposal. Too bad it’s not exactly like that. In fact, it’s not like that at all; it’s not how they tell you, it’s not how they sell it to you.

Life Outside

I’ve been to five official National Parks, maybe not all the “best,” but some of them yes: Tortuguero National Park, Arenal Volcano National Park, Manuel Antonio National Park, Corcovado National Park, and Marino Ballena National Park. Some of these parks are immense and undoubtedly hide true treasures of Biodiversity within them. Too bad that this Biodiversity, unless you are from NatGeo or Discovery Channel themselves, won’t be shown to you. Visiting all these parks, especially Manuel Antonio and Corcovado, essentially involves walking a loop of a few kilometers, well-defined, well-marked, and in some cases (see Manuel Antonio) as crowded as your city’s main shopping street. This means that in the vast majority of cases you’ll see very few animals, mostly of the category “I don’t give a fuck” about the presence of humans: insects, reptiles, vultures, and occasional curious monkey. Sloths? Forget them unless they’re at considerable heights and well-camouflaged among the vegetation. Jaguars? It’s easier to win the New Year’s lottery than see one “in the wild.” Puma? See previous. Ocelot? You’re kidding, right?

The guides do nothing but make you “hope” to see one of these “unicorns,” or at least glimpse them, knowing full well it won’t happen in the 99.9999% of cases. They’re often rushed, as if they’re trying to get you to tick off a wildlife-checklist. They’re kind and knowledgeable, but often come across as unenthusiastic and cold, as cashiers on a supermarket.

(All the photos on this page ARE NOT took in a National Park or a protected area)

I don’t want to go into the specifics of each park; I’ll only do with Manuel Antonio National Park, because the situation there is truly out of control: a hellish ring of a few kilometers packed with people, groups of Indiana Joneses in flip-flops brandishing their smartphones to take selfies with anything that moves, hysterical children, crying or howling, rude men talking loudly on their phones, MILFs squads in sundresses thinking only of when they can take a Bo Derek-style video once they reach the beach, guides who push you to make room for their group’s clients, noise and human pollution that you can imagine the effect it has on the animals. The park has enormous potential, as well as its enormous size, too bad you’ll never see it, as I’ve already written.

The management of the parks is what most shocked and disappointed me: enormous areas of which only 1% is shown to you. I understand the desire to preserve nature from the average idiot tourist, but why not charge even more (and it’s already not cheap) for those who truly want to experience the park, in the noisy silence of nature, in the storytelling and sharing, in the thrilling anticipation of an encounter that might not even happen, but with the current management and formula, you immediately understand it 100% will never happen.

But what about documentaries? Sure, documentarists and filmmakers have access to areas not accessible to everyone, and that’s fine with me, I can understand that, but then why don’t you tell it like it is, why don’t you show it as it is, without using petty marketing strategies to present something that in reality isn’t even remotely like that?

Do you know what the paradox is? I’ve seen much more and many more animals outside the national parks than inside them. Of course, because Costa Rica is truly rich in biodiversity, and you can encounter it everywhere, even outside the national parks, on a walk, or simply by looking up as you’re on your way to breakfast.

The Ugly Truth

Lack of intellectual honesty, transparency, and superficiality: these are the things that most disappointed me during these nearly 20 days spent in Costa Rica’s parks. It’s not nice to make comparisons, but for those who have been fortunate enough to travel as much as I have, comparisons with other worlds are inevitable, and this feeling of being in the aisles of a “Wildlife Supermarket” only adds to the disappointment.

A country and a people for whom I wish only the best, but if they don’t change their ways, they will become, in my opinion, a destination only for selfie-seekers and not for true nature lovers.

I just hope they don’t like this.