Osa Peninsula, Caletas Wildlife Preserve & Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica
Today we had a great opportunity to explore the Osa Peninsula which is considered one of the richest and most diverse tropical ecosystems in Central America. This peninsula has one of the most pristine rain forests of the country, which has been preserved thanks to the difficult access that has kept this place safe from heavy human impact. This is one of those few places in Central America with enough forest tract to protect even the largest animals of the neo-tropical forest like jaguars and tapirs -- the largest mammals of this ecosystem.
This place not only has one of the biggest and wildest national parks of the country, but also many private wildlife preserves adjacent to the national park that increase the total forest land for all the animal life there.
Knowing this, we took the morning to explore Caletas Private Preserve on different hikes and some of us on a horseback ride along the shoreline. What a beautiful morning we had there; not only was the weather nice, but we also got to see lots of tropical birds like honey creepers, tanagers and even the beautiful toucans.
After our morning hikes and while the ship was repositioning on our way to Corcovado National Park, we spotted a group of humpback whales that put up a nice show for us.
The rest of the afternoon we explored the different sets of trails of the national park, in which some went on a shore hike through the tropical forest and got to see a few more birds and a nice look at a big troop of howler monkeys, some of them with babies. The rest of the hikers took the waterfall trail where they were able to see the waterfall, swim in one of the water holes of the river, and see an American crocodile.
