Corcovado National Park
Dry Season in Costa Rica’s wildest and wettest Pacific rain forest, and weather-wise we had it all today at Corcovado national park. It’s hard to believe that the deluge that swelled the jungle rivers with mud and cut off many of our trail options with flooding and current could give way to a beautiful beach barbecue lunch and an afternoon swimming, horseback-riding and just lazing on the beach. But that’s the nature of a tropical rain forest, where we all braved the downpour through a wet surf landing to witness the various strategies that tropical plants have for shedding the omnipresent water off their drip-tip leaves or collecting it in floral basins to attract tomorrow’s pollinators.
Wildlife was scarce during the downpour, but once the rains subsided, the forest begins to stir. Scarlet macaws began their flights, songbirds flitted about, coatis started snooping the forest floor, and small groups of spider monkeys began to forage. An offshore humpback whale even joined in the celebration of sunlight as we repositioned the Sea Voyager to nearby Playa Las Caletas. During the sunny afternoon, hikers and horseback riders alike saw white-faced capuchin monkeys. And by the end of the day, it seemed that everyone was longing to get wet again with a plunge into the warm ocean. We finished the day with cocktails on the sundeck and a spectacular sunset behind Isla del Caño, dizzy with the day’s diversity around Costa Rica’s Corcovado National Park.
Dry Season in Costa Rica’s wildest and wettest Pacific rain forest, and weather-wise we had it all today at Corcovado national park. It’s hard to believe that the deluge that swelled the jungle rivers with mud and cut off many of our trail options with flooding and current could give way to a beautiful beach barbecue lunch and an afternoon swimming, horseback-riding and just lazing on the beach. But that’s the nature of a tropical rain forest, where we all braved the downpour through a wet surf landing to witness the various strategies that tropical plants have for shedding the omnipresent water off their drip-tip leaves or collecting it in floral basins to attract tomorrow’s pollinators.
Wildlife was scarce during the downpour, but once the rains subsided, the forest begins to stir. Scarlet macaws began their flights, songbirds flitted about, coatis started snooping the forest floor, and small groups of spider monkeys began to forage. An offshore humpback whale even joined in the celebration of sunlight as we repositioned the Sea Voyager to nearby Playa Las Caletas. During the sunny afternoon, hikers and horseback riders alike saw white-faced capuchin monkeys. And by the end of the day, it seemed that everyone was longing to get wet again with a plunge into the warm ocean. We finished the day with cocktails on the sundeck and a spectacular sunset behind Isla del Caño, dizzy with the day’s diversity around Costa Rica’s Corcovado National Park.
