The comedian Vic Reeves describes his most memorable holiday: two weeks spent in the jungles of Costa Rica" I had the most fabulous holiday in Costa Rica. It's the most amazing place to go if you're into wildlife: a real animal paradise.
My wife, Nancy, and I travelled to Corcovado National Park (http://www.costarica-nationalparks.com/) for a couple of weeks, forgot about the world outside and lost ourselves, so to speak, in the jungle's rich and diverse animal and bird life.
We stayed at a rangers' station in the middle of the park, which you reach via a boat trip down a river and a jungle trail; there's nothing for a couple of hundred miles around.
Being plunged into this other world was such a revelation: every time I looked out of the window there was something to see
– a tapir (a big, pig-like creature), a spider monkey, a hummingbird… and I'll never forget being woken at four in the morning by the howler monkeys… boy, can they howl.And strange as it may sound, the three hours I spent trying to get a half-decent picture of a hummingbird – which is harder than it sounds – were three of the best hours I've spent in my life.
Staying in the middle of the jungle might not be to everyone's taste. The food was pretty basic – consisting of a lot of beans and rice – and the camp itself was one of the most unsanitary places I've ever stayed. We even had a cockroach or two for company in our cabin… but in a weird way, that just made it all the better.
Of course, you have to go prepared, have all sorts of injections and resign yourself to being bitten by the odd mosquito, regardless of the amount of repellent you use. Indeed, Nancy, poor thing, got bitten on the leg by some kind of spider that left a rock-hard egg-sized lump on her neck. So, yes, there are things out there… but you really don't want to worry about them."
Read the full story in the Telegraph and you can read about Vic's trip in Vic Reeves's 'Vast Book of World Knowledge' is published by Atlantic Books (19.99).
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