Early this morning National Geographic Sea Lion dropped anchor in front of our morning destination, Casa Orquideas, Golfo Dulce. Just yesterday we were at the other side of the Osa Peninsula, on the southwest coast of Costa Rica, Central America. It is very delightful to enter the calm waters of this Golfo Dulce, with the thick forested hills all around and we always look forward for our visit to Casa Orquideas.
Casa Orquideas is the property and creation of Trudy and Ron McAllister, two American expatriates who left civilization and relocated to this remote part of the world 37 years ago. Their love for tropical plants and hard work has over time created this beautiful open exhibit of trees, palms, fruits, spices, ornamental and medicinal plants. And on top of this, they get the regular visits of many birds from the adjacent pristine forest such as manakins, tanagers, flycatchers, toucans, and parrots.
In the morning, those who wanted to be there at dawn with the best light for photography and when the birds are the most active departed before breakfast. Later after breakfast, everybody had a chance to go back again and walk the easy trails at a more leisurely time of the day. Casa Orquideas is such an incredible place!
In the afternoon, we repositioned to the other side of Golfo Dulce for our afternoon activities at Rio Tigre mangrove. Our guests had the opportunity to explore this important ecosystem either on our expedition landing crafts or by their own power on our kayaks. We saw many birds, such as willets, whimbrels, plovers, potoos and toward the end of our exploration, a troop of very active squirrel monkeys.
We had an incredibly super last day in Costa Rica. Tomorrow we wake up to find what Panama has waiting for us.
