Friday, March 30, 2007

Isla del Coco / Cocos Island



I promised myself and some of my blog readers to continue my virtual island hopping tour this month. Okay, just before April 1, I hop on to my next island (click on the virtual island hopping label below this post if you want to know more about Jan Mayen - the icy volcanic island where this tour started!)

Just a couple of things that I found out about this beautiful island just by doing some in-depth desk research (I admit, I only looked at some Google links):

Isla del Coco or Cocos Island belongs to Costa Rica and is located five hundred kilometers off the Pacific coast. It is remote, mysterious, and teeming with sea life. Hammerhead sharks, giant manta rays, marine turtles, and schools of huge fish are only a few of the creatures you'll see - if you can go there! On land, the island has 200 waterfalls, some of which plunge dramatically into the sea. There are tales of buried treasure on the island, which at one time was a respite for pirates.

Now this is the idea: I want to receive some comments from people who visited this island and I want to find out if there is a living soul on Isla del Coco with internet access. If so, I would like him or her to leave a comment and tell us more about this pearl of the Pacific...

Stay tuned, I will try to find out more about Isla del Coco and in the next couple of days I will send some emails to people who could be able to tell us more. Feel free to help me with this project and tell treasure island enthusiasts, rangers and scuba divers to visit my blog and share their experiences about their stay on Isla del Coco.

These are my questions:
1. What is it like to live on / visit this island?
2. Can you tell me some interesting things about yourself?
3. Is it any fun to be on this island? (If yes, why? If no, why not?)
4. Can you tell me a little bit more about the animals, the scenery and the vegetation and about the protection of nature?
5. If there's anything you could take with you from this island to share with the 'civilized' world, what would it be?
6. And finally, if you look at the animals and the vegetation on this island, do you believe that all this beauty is the product of time, natural selection and pure coincidence?

5 comments:

Carolanne said...

Sounds like a beautiful island to visit!
Waterfalls plunging dramatically into the ocean....
Tales of buried treasure....
I'm looking forward to hearing more.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Paul! I like this choice. It should be interesting. Unfortunately, I've never been to that part of the world (relatively speaking, I haven't been very many places at all). This is a great way to "travel" and get to know more about exotic areas. I'm looking forward to being educated!

Anonymous said...

Hello there! I am costarrican and as one we are all very proud of the island, did you know that it´s the biggest island on earth with no people living on it? it has a reason to be, and that is that it´s ilegal to do it, as a nathional park, only a couple (literally) park keppers live over there with no internet access, water pipes or anything like that, it´s just nature, as a tourist you can visit the island but you can´t stay over night, if you go. you will have to stay one the boat at night sleeping, he island is truly an amazing place, totally wild, no paths to follow or anything like that, but the surrounding sea is more than amazing, tons of wildlife (over 5% of the ENTIRE WORLD´s fauna lives there) THAT´S A LOT!!

Ohh and the pirate history.. those are true, satellites have checked the island and found gold and stuff but no one can get it cuse the place is protected by the law, they have also found petroleum, that can´t be taken for the same reason!

Well.. is any of you ever have the opportunity to go... DO IT.. ohh i forgot to say that during the boat travel to the island you will be followed by dolphins jumping on the water???


PLEASE CHECK THIS:
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t282/maoa2121/Islacoco.jpg
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t282/maoa2121/amigogrande9px.jpg
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t282/maoa2121/whitetips.jpg

Anonymous said...

is it true that there is a treasure there with over $60,000,000.00? What can you tell me?

Paul said...

@ anonymous
Yes that is true! You can find it on the map marked with an X. It's next to the fifth palm tree from the eastern shore, right beside the old pirate's house. But there is a chance that somebody else was there before you... :-)