Corcovado National Park; Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica

Although I will miss my real family very much over Christmas and New Year, there is no where else I would rather be over this special time than travelling with my Costa Rican and Panamanian Sea Voyager family in this magical part of the world. I would be hard pushed to say which my favourite part of the trip though, Corcovado National Park and the Osa Peninsula might just about be my very favourite part of the world – this saying quite a lot, as my home is in the Galápagos Islands!

I love the remote and inaccessible feel to the whole area: like the Galápagos and Coiba Island in Panama we are to visit tomorrow, this place was so scarily remote that its earliest use was as a penal colony! This says a lot about how the mindset of humanity as a whole has changed over the last 50 years: we now regard areas such as these as heaven instead of hell!

Our morning was spent hiking through pristine, lush, primary rainforests, observing several species of new-world mammals and birds, bathing in a waterfall pool and taking exciting Zodiac cruises through the surf to and from the ship. On our way to a place entitled “Caletas Beach”, where our hotel department treated us to a beach BBQ after which we chose to either ride horses along the long Costa Rican beaches and intricate forest trails, take further birding or exercise hikes, just relax in hammocks or beach towels or play in the abundant surf.

A truly wonderful way to end our time in the unforgettable Costa Rica.