Costa Rica Guide
The Zona Sur
Parque Nacional Isla del Coco
Five hundred kilometres southwest off Costa Rica's Pacific coast, the remote PARQUE NACIONAL ISLA DEL COCO, integrated into the national park system in 1978, is, these days, most famous as "Dinosaur Island" in Steven Spielberg's blockbuster Jurassic Park. In the opening frames of the film, a helicopter swoops over azure seas to a remote, emerald-green isle: that's Coco. At 12km long and 5km wide, Coco is the only island in this part of the Pacific that receives enough rain to support the growth of rainforest. It also has an extraordinary wealth of endemic species: seventy plant species, sixty-four insect species, three spiders and four types of bird, all of which are found nowhere else in the world. Besides researchers and rangers, Coco has no human inhabitants.
Though evidence suggests that the island was known by pre-Columbian sea-going peoples from Ecuador and Colombia, in the modern age it was "discovered" by the navigator and sea captain Joan Cabezas in 1526. Attempts were made to establish a colony here in the early twentieth century, and nowadays wild descendants of the would-be settlers' pigs and coffee plants have upset the island's Galapagos-like ecosystem. Other threats include illegal fishing in its waters; the SPN has extremely limited resources for policing the island, as simply getting there by sea is so expensive. Besides biologists and divers, Coco attracts treasure hunters. It is said that over the centuries nefarious pirates buried bullion here, but in more than five hundred expeditions by tenacious treasure hunters, no one has yet found it. If you're interested in the island, contact the Fundación Amigos de La Isla del Coco ( 
256-7476, 
www.cocosisland.org ) which was founded in 1994 to help preserve the unique terrestrial and marine biodiversity of Coco.
Getting to Coco entails major expense. In the North American winter months the ship Okeanos Aggressor leaves from Puntarenas ( 385-2628, www.aggressor.com ) for specialist ten-day diving tours. The price is about $3000 per person, excluding transport to Costa Rica and equipment rental, which is available once you arrive.