Rio Rincon & Casa Orquídeas, Golfo Dulce
Well, we are now on our second day in Costa Rica, and things just keep getting better and better each day of the trip.
Today we started over at river mouth of Rincon River were we had our first introduction to a mangrove ecosystem, one of the richest ecosystems in the world. Our options to spend the morning time were varied.
First, about half of us took the opportunity of get in kayaks and explore this beautiful place by ourselves and at our own pace while some others took a dirt road hike through the forest with the naturalists in order to look for some wild life and do a little bit of birding followed by an opportunity to see these mangrove forests by means of our fleet of Zodiacs, each with a naturalist on board to help us with our understanding of this type of ecosystem and help search for wildlife. Besides the incredible mangrove forest we also got to see monkeys, toucans, woodcreepers, spotted eagle rays, northern jacanas, and white ibis.
It was indeed a very good morning. But the afternoon didn’t let us down either! After a lecture about conservation in the world by renowned author Jared Diamond, we went over to visit a place known as Casa Orquideas, Spanish for “Orchid House”: an open botanical garden where we had an amazing afternoon looking not only at orchids but bromeliads, palms and tropical fruit trees. This high concentration of flowering plants also makes the area a magnet to wonderful Neotropical birds like toucans, flycatchers, tanagers, hummingbirds, and even manakins.
So we had not only a full day but a great time during our second day in the tropics.
Well, we are now on our second day in Costa Rica, and things just keep getting better and better each day of the trip.
Today we started over at river mouth of Rincon River were we had our first introduction to a mangrove ecosystem, one of the richest ecosystems in the world. Our options to spend the morning time were varied.
First, about half of us took the opportunity of get in kayaks and explore this beautiful place by ourselves and at our own pace while some others took a dirt road hike through the forest with the naturalists in order to look for some wild life and do a little bit of birding followed by an opportunity to see these mangrove forests by means of our fleet of Zodiacs, each with a naturalist on board to help us with our understanding of this type of ecosystem and help search for wildlife. Besides the incredible mangrove forest we also got to see monkeys, toucans, woodcreepers, spotted eagle rays, northern jacanas, and white ibis.
It was indeed a very good morning. But the afternoon didn’t let us down either! After a lecture about conservation in the world by renowned author Jared Diamond, we went over to visit a place known as Casa Orquideas, Spanish for “Orchid House”: an open botanical garden where we had an amazing afternoon looking not only at orchids but bromeliads, palms and tropical fruit trees. This high concentration of flowering plants also makes the area a magnet to wonderful Neotropical birds like toucans, flycatchers, tanagers, hummingbirds, and even manakins.
So we had not only a full day but a great time during our second day in the tropics.
