Landing on the beach, we walked inland, led by Rudy Zamora, the ship's naturalist, to look for scarlet macaws. A small colony of these showy red parrots, endangered throughout Central America, thrives here in one of the lower stories.

''Keep looking,'' advised Zamora, stopping to peer through binoculars. ''When they start to squawk, then we'll be able to see them,'' he said. The guide's sharp ears heard them, then we spotted two on a tree branch.

Our next stop was at the Casa Orquideas, in the Golfo Dulce. A botanical garden created by Americans Ron and Trudy Macallister, the Casa Orquideas is an important botanical center where visitors can see most of Central America's best-known flora. The Macallisters, who moved to Costa Rica in 1973, bought a piece of logged coastal land in 1979, built a cabin and set about to create the garden.

''At first we grew things to feed ourselves,'' said Trudy. ``Bananas, pineapple, sapote, citrus, vegetables, that sort of thing. Then we added a few flowers and discovered we could sell some of them. Then we added ornamental plants, began a landscaping business, and finally, in 1993, opened the place as a botanical garden.''

Led by Zamora, who could hardly contain his excitement, we explored the garden examining more than 100 ornamental species cultivated in separate beds, flanked by rows of orchids, heliconias, bromeliads and palms.

With a beach day planned, the ship anchored off Granita de Oro, a tiny islet in the Coiba National Park. Ferried from the ship to the island's exquisite sand beaches, the passengers spend the day sunning, snorkeling, kayaking around the island and reading in the shade. A drinks and snack table set up under a tree provided refreshments, and the launch shuttled between the shore and the ship.

The fastest-booked and most eagerly attended excursions were several guided trips up coastal rivers in search of wildlife. With two crew members and six passengers, we boarded the Zodiacs and motored slowly upstream under a jungle canopy, with cameras and binoculars at the ready.

Camouflaged by leaves and sticks, it was hard to see the animals -- two-toed sloths on tree limbs, iguanas sunbathing, boat-billed herons perched in shady thickets and boa constrictors wound around dusty sticks. In fact, it took naturalist Giovanni Bello's sharp eyes to spot them, and six pairs of binoculars for us to see what he saw.

It was particularly humid on the day we explored the Rio Rinco, in the heart of the mangrove swamps where Bello quickly spotted a pair of howler monkeys perched high on a breezy branch. As the insects buzzed, the sun beat down on the water and the heat hung in the air like smoke, the man next to me got a laugh with, ``you wonder where the real monkeys are sitting!''

But nothing could dampen Bello's enthusiasm. ''Three of the world's 41 species of mangrove trees live along these banks,'' he said, peering into tangled thicket. ``The trees pull salt from the brackish water and release it through the leaves. The leaves make oxygen to feed the roots. The coatimundis, monkeys, snakes -- everything here depends on the mangroves.''

TIMELESS PEOPLE

My most memorable experience was our visit to one of the primitive Embera villages tucked into the Darien Jungle on Panama's Pacific coast. Despite an occasional visitor, the Embera people continue to live as they always have, following traditional practices, building open-sided, thatched houses on stilts and wearing few clothes.

They greeted us with shy smiles and crowded hesitantly around as Zamora shook hands with the chief. Greeting us, he led a tour through the tribe's vegetable plots and past their houses.

Most of the women, wearing traditional knee-length sarongs, went bare-breasted, and all decorated their faces, arms, legs and chests with heavy black designs. The men wore loincloths or western-style shorts. The children spoke a few words of Spanish, apparently learned from coastal traders who call at intervals, exchanging plastic pails, pots, knives, men's shorts and bolts of printed cotton for weavings and carvings.

On each of its visits, the Pacific Explorer's crew bring gifts of pens and paper for the children, soccer balls, clothes, food and candy. The government has been here, too, doing its bit, building a cement sidewalk that goes nowhere and a cement-block community building that feels completely out of place.

As we motored out to the ship and turned to wave goodbye, even the Embera children had already vanished into the forest. From the ship's rail, there was no trace that we -- or they -- had ever been there. If only it could stay that way.

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