Manuel Antonio National Park & Drake Bay, Costa Rica
A new trip has started; a new group of explorers will courageously explore a little percent of the Neotropics, which run from southern Mexico down to Amazon Basin. The Neotropics refers to the youngest tropical rain forest in the world, with an average age of 9,000 years, which started developing right after the last glacial period ended. There are animals which are are only found within these boundaries, and luckily for us, we got to see some of them.
Today, the Sea Voyager broke the pink sky and dropped anchor in a little cove on one of the smallest protected areas within the country, Manuel Antonio National Park. Despite its size, it houses a fairly large number of medium size animals: monkeys, agoutis, raccoons, coatis, and iguanas, among several species of birds.
One of the walks went through a more forested area, where we got to see a Fiery-billed Aracari, which is a small type of toucan with an incredible fire-red beak. The toucan family is endemic to the Neotropics, which means they are not present in any other place on the planet. Soon after we left the toucan, a troop of white-faced monkeys displayed their climbing, jumping and swinging abilities just in front of us. In the case of the monkeys, they are not endemic to the Neotropics, but their prehensile tail is only developed in the primates of these regions.
As we were coming to the end of our walk a baby two-toed sloth was deep asleep above our heads, perfectly closing the chapter of animals which are only present in this part of the world. Sloths are interesting mammals that don’t control their body temperature but depend on the temperature of the environment for many of their activities.
Even when all this sounds like a full day, this was just the morning. After lunch the Sea Voyager navigated southeast, escorted by several pods of dolphins. In Drake’s Bay we kayaked a serpentine, jade colored river framed by lush rainforest; our peacefulness was interrupted by the loud squawking of a group of Scarlet Macaws, but no one minded at all…
A new trip has started; a new group of explorers will courageously explore a little percent of the Neotropics, which run from southern Mexico down to Amazon Basin. The Neotropics refers to the youngest tropical rain forest in the world, with an average age of 9,000 years, which started developing right after the last glacial period ended. There are animals which are are only found within these boundaries, and luckily for us, we got to see some of them.
Today, the Sea Voyager broke the pink sky and dropped anchor in a little cove on one of the smallest protected areas within the country, Manuel Antonio National Park. Despite its size, it houses a fairly large number of medium size animals: monkeys, agoutis, raccoons, coatis, and iguanas, among several species of birds.
One of the walks went through a more forested area, where we got to see a Fiery-billed Aracari, which is a small type of toucan with an incredible fire-red beak. The toucan family is endemic to the Neotropics, which means they are not present in any other place on the planet. Soon after we left the toucan, a troop of white-faced monkeys displayed their climbing, jumping and swinging abilities just in front of us. In the case of the monkeys, they are not endemic to the Neotropics, but their prehensile tail is only developed in the primates of these regions.
As we were coming to the end of our walk a baby two-toed sloth was deep asleep above our heads, perfectly closing the chapter of animals which are only present in this part of the world. Sloths are interesting mammals that don’t control their body temperature but depend on the temperature of the environment for many of their activities.
Even when all this sounds like a full day, this was just the morning. After lunch the Sea Voyager navigated southeast, escorted by several pods of dolphins. In Drake’s Bay we kayaked a serpentine, jade colored river framed by lush rainforest; our peacefulness was interrupted by the loud squawking of a group of Scarlet Macaws, but no one minded at all…
