Costa Rica to Chile 26/1–18/11/2024

Posted by Sarah on November 9, 2024

My Third Expedition in 2024

While on Silver Cloud travelling from Puerto Williams to Namibia in March, I signed up for an expedition from Costa Rica to Chile on the recommendation of Peter Harrison. I invited my brother Lawrence and his wife Sally to join. Then Sally’s sister Sylvia and her husband Chu Sir and their friends Stephen and Bonnie also decided to join.

Pre-cruise: Los Angeles & San Jose 26 – 31 October

As my niece, Lili, lives in LA, I decided to join Lawrence and Sally to fly to LA on 26 October to spend the weekend with her. We also took the chance to visit Ken, Lawrence’s classmate from primary school. On 28 October, I flew around 10 am on United Airline via Houston and arrived in San Jose at 8 pm. Lawrence and Sally and the other four all took the direct flight to San Jose with Alaska Airline and waited for me for almost an hour at the airport. We took a minibus to a flat with three bed-rooms downtown.

We had a leisure day on 29 October strolling in the Central Market and the old town. I spent an hour and a half at the Jade Museum. Though the entrance fee is USD16 for foreigners, I am impressed by the collections of jade and ceramics and the illustrations. It is a nice surprise. As it started to rain after 2 pm, we all returned to the flat and had a good rest.

On 30 October, we hired a 7-seater and drove three hours to the Arenal Volcano. Stephen was not feeling well and stayed behind. We hiked for an hour and a half in the park and were lucky to got back to the car before torrential rain poured down after 3 pm. A narrow escape. It was after 8:30pm when we got back and were totally exhausted.

The boarding time was after 2 pm on 31 October. Sylvia, Chu Sir, Sally, Lawrence and I decided to visit the Butterfly Garden in San Jose. The garden is an oasis with lots of butterflies. We spent a delightful morning with butterflies. We arranged a minibus to take us to the cruise terminal. The journey took two and a hour hours because the traffic was heavy and the driver took us to the wrong terminal.

Day 1 Puntarenas Costa Rica – Boarding

Once we reached the cruise terminal, everything was plain sailing. I shared a cabin with veranda with Lawrence and Sally (Cabin 725) and had a comfortable bed set up in the sitting room in the evening. Everything looked familiar as Silver Cloud (that I took in March) is a sister ship of Silver Wind: the size, layout and decor of the cabin are the same. Before dinner, we met Captain Oleksandr Kolosov and the Expedition leader David during the briefing. The boat had about 240 guests. Seven of us had our first dinner in the main dining room on L4. But the service was slow: the waiter at our table was new and anxious. By the time I went to bed shortly after 10 pm, I was tired and had a good night sleep.

Day 2 Playa Panama

The expedition team arranged six itineraries for passengers. I decided to take the 7-hour ‘Palo Verde Wildlife and Traditions” trip. I disembarked at 8 am and set off in a coach to Hacienda El Viejo that is about an hour away. Here, we saw the traditional method in extracting sugar cane juice and the making of tortilla in the hacienda. Then we spent an hour on the river looking for birds and wildlife. It started to rain and we were lucky to spot green and dark iguanas, many herons (white, blue, green and tiger herons), white face monkeys, crocodiles, and a kingfisher. We heard callings of a tucan but it flew away. We returned to the hacienda for lunch before returning to the boat. Tonight at the Captain’s cocktail, we were introduced to the department heads of the boat and the expedition team members.

Day 3 Punta Leona

I had a busy day joining two half-day trips. In the morning, I took a boat ride on Tarcoles River which is about an hour’s drive from Punta Leona, a private resort. The weather was fine with clear blue sky. I had a wonderful boat ride seeing a dozen of crocodiles, numerous herons, white stork and Roseata spoonbill. I had to skip lunch as I jumped on another bus heading for a jungle and wagon trip in a private refuge. I had a bumpy ride and it was quite an experience.

Day 4 Golfito

When I woke up and looked out of the window, I found the boat by a pier in Golfito located in a calm bay (Golfo Duce) backed against steep green hills covered with pristine rainforest. It was a misty and atmospheric morning! We had for a change a dry landing this morning. I joined a nature walk in a private refuge. For the first half of the walk, we walked along a muddy flat path looking at different wild ginger flowers, Panama palm trees, strangle fig trees and tadpoles near a pond. The second half part of the walk to a waterfall with crossing of two small streams and climbing on rocks and muddy path was demanding. Luckily, some passengers lent me their hands and kept me from falling into the stream. But an elderly gentleman was not fortunate: he fell on a downhill muddy slope and then in the first stream. He carried on crossing the second stream before giving up. The staff and a few strong fellow passengers had to carry him back to the refuge office. I thought he might have hurt himself as he could not stand up and walk. He was carried back to the boat and I did not see him around the boat.

The boat set sail in the afternoon for Isla del Cocos. I attended two lectures namely “Forest Stories” by Tristan Kusel and “Tropical Seabirds” by Peter Harrison, a wonderful speaker and an expert on seabirds.

Day 5 Isla Del Coco

We arrived at the Cocos Island around lunch time. The original plan was to have a mandatory briefing by the Park rangers before visitors are allowed to go ashore. Owing to unexpected problems with the public address system on the boat, the briefing could not proceed. As a result, we had zodiac cruising for 75 minutes. I was in the second zodiac group and had a wonderful time when the weather and light were both reasonably good. We saw plenty of Cocos booby on the islets.