Playa Lapa	Activities Playa Lapa Carate, Osa Peninsula Costa Rica
Courtesy: Robert Schott , Artist

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The Carate area offers one of the greatest variety of eco-tourism activities available anywhere on the entire Osa peninsula.  Perhaps its largest attraction is that it is less than one hour's walk from Corcovado National Park, the largest and most impressive of the Costa Rican national parks.   However, as guests at any of the area resort lodges will tell you, Carate is a destination in its own right.  With its miles of deserted sand beaches and wild Pacific surf, it is one of the region's most significant turtle laying regions and has hosted turtle research facilities and investigators for years.  In addition to the broad beaches, Carate is also famous for an abundance of waterfalls in the area and the brackish Pejeperrito Lagoon, whose waters extend up the slough between the beach and Playa Lapa.  Terrapin Lodge offers kayaks for enjoying the lagoon, and for those wanting to take a walk on the wild side, they offer crocodile viewing tours there at night.  Apart from its spectacular setting and the beauty of the beaches, jungle, mountains, and lagoon, Carate is also famous for its gold.  In 1939 it hosted one of only two offshore gold dredge line operations in the entire world and to this day, hand miners can be observed working the Carate river regularly and the auriferous beaches following spring tides.  For guided tours or for self-guided kayak and horseback adventures, consider the following:

CORCOVADO DAY HIKE

Explore the La Leona entrance of Corcovado National Park with a bilingual naturalist guide.  Includes primary and secondary forest, river, beach, waterfall, and lots of animals.  Guided tour, $75 per person, full day.  There is a $10 entrance fee to the park.

TREE CLIMBING

Reade Jordan is Carate's premier extreme sports outfitter.  Climb into the canopy over eighty feet in the air and enjoy the thrill of a zip line far above the jungle floor:  $75 per person, half day

WATERFALL RAPELLING

Rapell a Carate waterfall with CATS Adventure tours.  $75, half day.  Combo tree climb and waterfall rapelle, $125, full day.

BIRD WATCHING

There are over 375 avian species in the Carate region, including jungle, beach and Pejeperrito watershed area.   A bilingual naturalist with a telescope can spot and describe the macaws, Amazon parrots, raptors and brotogeris parrots, as well as many species of herons, egrets and ibises.  This is your best chance to see the roseate spoonbill.   $50 half day

FISHING

Pejeperrito Lagoon is teeming with snook.  Depending on the phase of the moon and the time of the day, you can catch pan-sized and lunker snook in the lagoon and/or large snook, snapper, jack, and other inshore fish from the shore.  You need a guide to get the right bait and set you up right to catch your dinner or your prize photo or both.  $50 half day.

HORSEBACK RIDING

Horseback tours make the run all along Carate trails and beaches.  Observe extensive wildlife.  Gallop on a tropical beach.  daily.  $50 guided.  Self-guiding:  $30.  Three hours.

If organized tours are not your thing, just take off hiking up Shady Lane or in either direction along the beach, or pick up a kayak at Terrapin and launch out on your own on Pejeperrito Lagoon.   By land or water Carate is as full of alternatives as the imagination's reach. 

HOME  LOCATION   FACILITIES   ACTIVITIES   GALLERY  CALENDAR   RESERVATIONS   CONTACT  OSA RESERVATIONS                                                                     PLAYA LAPA for sale: 506-2735-5702,  2735-5229