Osa Peninsula

The only thing I can say about today is WOW! Today is going to stay in my mind forever. Today we visited, if not the best, one of the best-kept areas of tropical rainforest in not just the Central American region, but the Meso-American region as well. The Osa Peninsula is located on the Southern Pacific side of Costa Rica. For many years, because of its relative isolation from the mainland, it was naturally protected. Luckily for everyone, it was declared a National Park and a World Heritage Site soon enough to keep it pristine.

We set off this morning on our excursions knowing that it would be a great day filled with activities such as walking, horseback riding, bird watching, swimming, trekking and swimming in a swimming whole in the middle of the rainforest, but nothing had prepared us for just how surprising today was.

We all chose an activity for the morning between horseback riding, taking a long forest walk or a short bird oriented walk. The morning rewarded all of us with different exciting sightings of leaf cutter and army ants, spider, mantled howler and white-throated capuchin monkeys, and even a three toed sloth!!!!

After lunch, we repositioned the ship just off the Corcovado National Park, in front of the San Pedrillo ranger’s station. We had three options, a long walk, a waterfall walk or a shorter walk to choose from. Those of us who took the waterfall walk had the chance to swim in a hole in the middle of the rainforest, where barely 30 feet away sat a crocodile. As we did so, a troop of spider monkeys decided to feed and swing right above our heads. If that wasn’t enough, as we left the trails and went back on board the ship, before we could even consider taking a shower, we heard over the P.A. system someone had spotted a whale.

Not just a whale, but a couple of adult male humpbacks “trying to get a females attention”. These three individuals gave the local Naturalists and all of our guests the show of their lives. Flipper slapping, breaching, fluking, lobtailing, and every other kind of whale behavior anyone from these latitudes could hope for!!! As these whales gave us Naturalists the afternoon of our lives, a spectacular red sun dropped into the horizon, saying good-bye to one of the most remarkable days, with a great view of the green flash.

We can only hope to have another day like this one again in our lives.