Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica
Living in the middle of nowhere thirty minutes by boat away from the nearest town does not sound like something we all would choose to do. But 25 years ago, that’s what Ron and Trudy MacAllister chose for themselves. On a 25 acre piece of land, Ron and Trudy established their home and what a home it is! Early this morning, we dropped anchor just outside their beach-facing little house and we disembarked to visit their gorgeous Botanical Garden named Casa Orquidea. We had four hours to walk around the pebbly paths that lead us through patches of orchids, bromeliads, palm trees, fruiting trees, heliconias and many more. This phenomenal garden made most of us, amateur gardeners, wish if only for a bit, we’d chosen the middle-of-nowhere- path… Not only were we welcomed by flowers, but an incredible array of birds made their way out to parade themselves in front of our awed eyes: toucans, macaws, manakins, hummingbirds, hawks, tanagers and yet some more. We all returned to our ship amazed at what strong will can accomplish…
For our afternoon activities, we repositioned the ship a bit further north inside the Gulf towards the mouth of the Rio Esquinas (Esquinas River). We had two options: kayaking around the mangrove/estuary areas just out of the mouth or taking a Zodiac cruise into the deeper parts of the river. The spooky shapes of the mangrove stilt roots and sense of being lost in a Sleepy Hollow’s tale made our adventure very interesting, not to mention the sighting of many species of water fowl, monkeys, rainbow boas, Jesus Christ lizards, and a few Homo sapiens fishing in their dugout canoes.
As we went back to the ship under a bit of a tropical drizzle, we thought of the days that have passed of our tropical adventure in Costa Rica and looked forward to the next few days in a new country, Panama.
Living in the middle of nowhere thirty minutes by boat away from the nearest town does not sound like something we all would choose to do. But 25 years ago, that’s what Ron and Trudy MacAllister chose for themselves. On a 25 acre piece of land, Ron and Trudy established their home and what a home it is! Early this morning, we dropped anchor just outside their beach-facing little house and we disembarked to visit their gorgeous Botanical Garden named Casa Orquidea. We had four hours to walk around the pebbly paths that lead us through patches of orchids, bromeliads, palm trees, fruiting trees, heliconias and many more. This phenomenal garden made most of us, amateur gardeners, wish if only for a bit, we’d chosen the middle-of-nowhere- path… Not only were we welcomed by flowers, but an incredible array of birds made their way out to parade themselves in front of our awed eyes: toucans, macaws, manakins, hummingbirds, hawks, tanagers and yet some more. We all returned to our ship amazed at what strong will can accomplish…
For our afternoon activities, we repositioned the ship a bit further north inside the Gulf towards the mouth of the Rio Esquinas (Esquinas River). We had two options: kayaking around the mangrove/estuary areas just out of the mouth or taking a Zodiac cruise into the deeper parts of the river. The spooky shapes of the mangrove stilt roots and sense of being lost in a Sleepy Hollow’s tale made our adventure very interesting, not to mention the sighting of many species of water fowl, monkeys, rainbow boas, Jesus Christ lizards, and a few Homo sapiens fishing in their dugout canoes.
As we went back to the ship under a bit of a tropical drizzle, we thought of the days that have passed of our tropical adventure in Costa Rica and looked forward to the next few days in a new country, Panama.
