Last night National Geographic Sea Lion quietly entered the tranquil waters of Golfo Dulce on the Pacific’s southernmost tip of Costa Rica. It was only yesterday that we were in Panama, at the mega island of Coiba and its miniature adjacent island of Granito de Oro.
This is one of the great advantages of travelling by ship; every day we awake at a new location, and today, even a new country. All we have to do is open the curtain in the morning and…voila, there we are!
This morning we visited the Casa Orquideas Botanical Garden. We anchored just 100 yards from the pebbly beach to find Trudy and Ron McAllister, the owners and creators of this incredible place, waiting to greet us. The McAllister’s are two American expatriates who have been living in this very remote part of the world for the last 30 years; their love for the tropical plants has flourished into a beautiful showcase of tropical diversity.
We truly enjoyed our walks trough the gardens today. The well-manicured trails are easy to walk; some chose to walk with the aid of a naturalist for interpretation and others decided to venture into it on their own. Among the many flowers, fruits, and spices, we had also the opportunity to watch many birds: tanagers, hummingbirds, wrens, euphonias, honeycreepers, hawks, parrots and parakeets. But probably the most emblematic tropical birds we saw today were the colorful and raucous scarlet macaws and the fiery-billed aracari toucans.
After the walks, and as the sun rose higher in the sky (and with it the temperatures), our guests were offered the opportunity to take a refreshing swim in the bay, followed by a hearty lunch. Then we were ready for repositioning back into the smaller bay of Golfito, within Golfo Dulce.
Once in Golfito, and after a little time for siesta, we explored the dense forested hills and its mangrove forest by Zodiac or kayak. It was quite a hot afternoon but the forest, as always, proved to be worth the effort. The beauty of the forest was enhanced with a few strokes of bird and mammalian life. We observed several herons and egrets, white ibis, green kingfishers, and sandpipers. We also had some great sightings of troops of howler monkeys, white-faced capuchin monkeys, a lone brown-throated three-toed sloth, and an elusive good-sized crocodile.
Overall, a great first day in Costa Rica, and as we open our curtains tomorrow morning in a brand new place we’ll see what new great things await us.
