Caletas & Corcovado National Park
Today we arrived at Caletas early in the morning, as is customary for us. We disembarked for an optional stretching yoga session on the beach by the forest, at the break of dawn. For our landing the ocean was a little rough, but our very reliable Zodiacs and Zodiac captains made it look easy. After filling our souls with time peacefully communing with nature, we returned to the ship to fill our stomachs and rejoice our bodies.
After breakfast, we returned to the beach for guided walks through the pristine rainforest of Caletas, on the buffer zone of the Corcovado National Park.
We divided our guests into small groups for horseback riding, leisurely paced walks and for the more adventurous, a hike through primary forest. Nature was generous to us as usual. We were rewarded with great sightings of the always spectacular scarlet macaws, the awkward looking large billed chesnut-mandibled toucans, bare-throated tiger herons bringing sticks to build a nest, golden-hooded tanagers, white-faced capuchin monkeys and armies of leaf cutter ants. Flying above our heads were continuous flocks of brown pelicans in perfect "V" formations.
In the afternoon, we repositioned the ship to the nearby Corcovado National Park. Truly an icon among the prestigious national parks of Costa Rica, it is one the largest and most remote protected area of the country.
After a hefty lunch, some time to rest and maybe take a short siesta, we were all set for our afternoon activities in this paradisiacal location. After disembarking again, we all diverged in different directions into the forest. We chose between a harder walk to a rainforest waterfall, and an easier walk in the forest adjacent to the coast.
What an incredible place Corcovado is! The diversity of the tropics is something you cannot see easily, but you can sense this richness just by looking at its greenery. Every hue of green is represented here, in so many different shapes and sizes of leafs. We are so grateful to be here. We were rewarded again by nature with more great sightings of black-throated trogons, leaf munching Howler monkeys and acrobatic spider monkeys.
We've had such a great day! Tomorrow we'll be visiting another icon of Costa Rica. When we wake up, all we’ll need to do is open the curtains and we'll be at a different national park, no packing needed. This is one of the great things about ships!
