Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
The large Osa Peninsula, second only to the Nicoya peninsula in size, is located on the southwestern side of the Costa Rican Pacific coast, and has the best remaining stands of Central America’s Pacific coastal rainforest. This area houses one of the largest national parks in Costa Rica, the Corcovado National Park. With an area of 54,600 hectares the park harbors a great biological diversity and has for many years attracted the attention of tropical ecologists and researchers who wish to study the intricate workings of the rainforest. Because of its remoteness this forest remained undisturbed until the 1960s when logging began in the area, the park was established in 1975. Nevertheless, the Park started having problems with miners panning in the rivers for gold. The miners were evicted in 1986, but there is still some illicit mining going on.
There are six ranger stations in the park and this morning we disembarked onto one of them, the San Pedrillo section named after a small river that runs along the park ranger’s station. We had several hiking opportunities; one group took a rugged trail leading to a 30-foot high waterfall while the other two groups decided to take a flatter trail. We had good sightings of wildlife: boat-billed herons, leaf cutter ants, army ants, spider monkeys, white-throated monkeys, agoutis, white nosed coatis, and a fantastic sighting of a black-throated trogon (picture above).
We went back to the Sea Voyager and repositioned the ship a little further north from San Pedrillo. The galley treated us with a delicious picnic lunch on shore, and somehow managed to hold the rain until we were finished our meal. It did rain a little during the afternoon, but it did not stop us from taking another hike through the forest. When all of us were back on the ship we began sailing towards the south. Our chief mate managed to find the perfect spot to turn the ship around just in time to see a mythical green flash. We are glad to announce that some of the skeptical ones are now true believers of the existence of such a thing as a green flash.
The large Osa Peninsula, second only to the Nicoya peninsula in size, is located on the southwestern side of the Costa Rican Pacific coast, and has the best remaining stands of Central America’s Pacific coastal rainforest. This area houses one of the largest national parks in Costa Rica, the Corcovado National Park. With an area of 54,600 hectares the park harbors a great biological diversity and has for many years attracted the attention of tropical ecologists and researchers who wish to study the intricate workings of the rainforest. Because of its remoteness this forest remained undisturbed until the 1960s when logging began in the area, the park was established in 1975. Nevertheless, the Park started having problems with miners panning in the rivers for gold. The miners were evicted in 1986, but there is still some illicit mining going on.
There are six ranger stations in the park and this morning we disembarked onto one of them, the San Pedrillo section named after a small river that runs along the park ranger’s station. We had several hiking opportunities; one group took a rugged trail leading to a 30-foot high waterfall while the other two groups decided to take a flatter trail. We had good sightings of wildlife: boat-billed herons, leaf cutter ants, army ants, spider monkeys, white-throated monkeys, agoutis, white nosed coatis, and a fantastic sighting of a black-throated trogon (picture above).
We went back to the Sea Voyager and repositioned the ship a little further north from San Pedrillo. The galley treated us with a delicious picnic lunch on shore, and somehow managed to hold the rain until we were finished our meal. It did rain a little during the afternoon, but it did not stop us from taking another hike through the forest. When all of us were back on the ship we began sailing towards the south. Our chief mate managed to find the perfect spot to turn the ship around just in time to see a mythical green flash. We are glad to announce that some of the skeptical ones are now true believers of the existence of such a thing as a green flash.
