Esquinas River and Casa Orquideas
Today we arrived very early in the morning at our first stop in Costa Rica.
Dawn caught us docked at the peaceful and remote port of Golfito for immigration paperwork.
Just as soon as the sun started to peek over the distant mountains we disengaged from the pier and carried on toward Casa Orquideas botanical garden. Casa Orquideas is deeper inside the pristine bay of Golfo Dulce, on the most southern part of the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.
It is always delightful to our senses to navigate this incredibly beautiful scenery, these tranquil waters with dense pristine rainforest all around.
Every time we come here, we can’t help but wonder how long such a place will remain unspoiled and “undeveloped”.
Casa Orquideas is a garden that was created by Ron and Trudy Mac Allister, American ex-patriots that came to this area and made it their home 30 years ago. It is an incredible beautiful showcase of tropical colorful plants slowly collected over all these years, with the addition of native birds visiting this plethora of plants.
We had a morning well spent, walking through the gardens, amongst many plants like heliconias and bromeliads, and birds like toucans, scarlet macaws, and manakins.
In the afternoon, National Geographic Sea Lion relocated deeper into the bay, in the estuary of the Esquinas River, adjacent to the Piedras Blancas preserve. Zodiac guided cruises where offered in the mangrove forest, while other guests chose to go under their own power and pace by kayak.
In the Esquinas River we were able to easily observe a troop of white faced capuchin monkeys, and many birds like, white ibis, snowy egrets, ospreys, whimbrels, spotted sand pipers, boat-billed herons and many others.
But the real special treat for today, was a very little nocturnal creature that is indeed truly cute looking, and quite rare to see. A tiny arboreal mammal that specializes in inhabiting mangrove forests, that belongs to a primitive group of poorly understood mammals that originated in South America: the silky anteater. It was rolled-up in its own prehensile tail, low, but up in a tree. Even for our most experienced naturalist this was an unusual sighting. The very special rewards that are often granted to us here in the tropics, despite all the species, are not offered easily and without work.
