Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica
We started our morning joining Steve St John, the Senior Picture Editor for the National Geographic Image Collection, on his presentation “National Geographic approach to travel photography”. Here we learned a little bit about what National Geographic is exactly looking for in a photo and how we should approach different situations whether it is with people or light.
In the meantime, the ship entered one of the warmest and wettest parts of Costa Rica which is known as Golfo Dulce. At the northeast end of the Gulf, we began our first outing of the morning by paying a visit to Ron and Trudy McAllister at their beautiful gardens known as Casa Orquidea. Because Ron and Trudy have been working these gardens for over 30 years we had the opportunity to walk around their medicinal garden and talk about the importance of species like noni and cacao. We were dazzled by the bright and intense colors of the flowers at their heliconia garden, and because of all these flowers, birds were all around us. Cherrie’s tanagers, bananaquits, chestnut mandibled toucans and scarlet macaws were just a few of the birds that made our visit even more colorful. Afterwards, some decided to take a dip in the warm waters of the Gulf by jumping from the fantail. Cooling down after a hot walk was a great way to end our morning.
In the afternoon, we repositioned to the southeastern side of the Gulf near a town called Golfito. Golfito is known to be a place full of history regarding the banana plantations of Costa Rica and is surrounded by hills covered with pristine forest. Among this interesting contrast, we found a nice mangrove area that we decided to explore. By means of Zodiac rides and kayaks we got really close to this ecosystem, so unique to tropical waters. We talked about the importance of protecting such a delicate environment, and how throughout the neotropical coastline development is truly affecting whatever little is left; unbalancing the relationship that exists between mangrove, sea grass and eventually coral reefs.
Back on board and after a technical stop at the town of Golfito, we cleared out of Costa Rica and started making our way east towards Panama, our second country of the voyage. In Panama we will continue to explore more of these exotic and local landscapes that identify Costa Rica and Panama.
