Yes. The slots in the plastic grille piece over the cowl lets the air in (along with some amount of debris), underneath the grille plastic is a well of sorts. The wiper motor linkages live there, too. Over on the far passenger side is a rectangular opening with a sheetmetal wall around it; air goes in directly to the HVAC ductwork box from there. The wall is meant to keep water and (most) debris out of the air intake.
If it helps to visualize it, here are a pair of HVAC boxes - the large rectangular opening towards the lefthand side of the pic is the fresh air intake portion of the box; it mates up under the firewall to the opening in the cowl "well" area. It feeds air directly into the blower housing which pushes it across the evaporator core.
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Richard