We went to visit the Barbilla National Park, an exaggeratedly beautiful and pure place… while here, the Cabécar indigenous people guided us into a little explored jungle that hides the most beautiful waterfalls and cascades we have ever seen. So take a hike to this place, this gem from the National Park.
We arrived at the entrance of the Barbilla National Park after 8:30 am, turns out that we ran into luck that there was a small fair with local indigenous products (they say it does it every month and a half), so we paid the thousand pesos per person entrance to the park and we ate a papaya to start walking.
According to the park administrator, P.N. Barbilla was created in 1983 in Cabécar territory. This is extremely special because these protected mountains are where the indigenous people live, and they are also the guides within the park. This is important because they see tourism as an opportunity to grow by selling their services and products.
After that we began to walk with our guide Evelio, with whom we began to descend the path that leads to the Danta River. This trail inside the jungle is very cool and quite muddy, for this reason we recommend trail tennis shoes with good traction or rubber boots like the fisherman kind.
After about 45 min descending we arrived at the Danta River, from here we went downstream crossing a couple of times to reach one of the 2 waterfalls here in the P.N. Chin.
The first of them is called Terciopelo and to get there we went upstream through one of the tributaries of the Danta River… we really arrived without expectations, without seeing photos of the place and when we arrived we were speechless! This waterfall has something that we have never seen, it falls through a stone wall of about 20 meters making a super nice pool. It is perfect to sit down for a while and eat something in the middle of nature. In addition, the pool is safe.
To get to the second waterfall we went back to the Danta River and got into another of the tributaries. We walked about 15 minutes upstream until we reached this other waterfall called Dos Caídas. (Two Falls)
As the name says, this waterfall has two large falls and a spectacular pool, we did not think twice about jumping into the water and with socks we decided to climb the waterfall above.
It really is an impressive place and we enjoyed the beauty of this place as much as we could until we got close to noon when it got a bit cloudy and it started to rain.
On the way back we went back up to the park rangers' house, where we bathed and ate rice with chicken from one of the local fair's stalls to return to San José.
*DATE OF HIKE: September 2021