Costa Rica
La Amistad International Park
A binational wilderness so vast and unexplored that scientists still discover new species inside it.
The trail dissolves into root and mud within an hour. Cloud forest gives way to elfin woodland, then mossy ridgelines where the trees shrink to shoulder height and the wind carries the smell of wet earth from a valley you cannot see. La Amistad International Park stretches across the Talamanca range in southern Costa Rica, and most of what lies inside it has never been mapped.
La Amistad spans 619,000 hectares across Costa Rica and Panama — the largest protected area in Central America. The park contains seven of Costa Rica's twelve Holdridge Life Zones, from lowland tropical forest to sub-alpine páramo, connected in an unbroken gradient. Access points are so few and infrastructure so minimal that the majority of the park remains unsurveyed. New species are formally described from La Amistad every year. Indigenous communities — Bribri, Cabécar, Ngäbe, and Teribe — have inhabited the forest edges for at least 2,000 years, serving as de facto guardians of an interior that even researchers struggle to reach. UNESCO inscribed the park as a World Heritage Site in 1983.
Solo
For experienced hikers, La Amistad offers trails where you may not see another person for days. The park demands self-sufficiency and rewards it with ecosystems that feel genuinely untouched.
Friends
Multi-day treks through La Amistad require teamwork — river crossings, route-finding, camp setup in cloud forest. The shared challenge of navigating genuinely wild territory cements a group.
- La Amistad spans 619,000 hectares across Costa Rica and Panama — the largest protected area in Central America.
- The park contains seven of the twelve Holdridge Life Zones found in Costa Rica — from lowland tropical forest to sub-alpine páramo — all connected.
- Access points are so few and infrastructure so minimal that most of the park has never been surveyed — new species are formally described from La Amistad every year.
- Indigenous communities — Bribri, Cabécar, Ngäbe, and Teribe — have inhabited the forest edges for at least 2,000 years, serving as de facto guardians of the interior.
Indigenous communities on the park's edges serve foraged meals and freshly ground cacao.
Buenos Aires has simple sodas with olla de carne — slow-cooked beef, corn, and root vegetable stew.
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