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The Hidden Secrets of Southern Costa Rica

Everyone knows Costa Rica is a beautiful and amazing place to vacation, but do you know about the lesser-traveled southern Costa Rica and its breathtaking secrets?

9009058866?profile=originalWild, breathtakingly beautiful and incredibly biodiverse, southern Costa Rica is not on most tourists’ itineraries. Least-explored and less-traveled than other parts of Costa Rica, the southern Pacific region is a wondrous, untouched paradise to discover. Best loved by adventurers and nature-lovers, this is the place to go to for rugge

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9009019095?profile=originalIf you are lucky, you will be spending your Christmas vacation in Costa Rica on an amazing tropical beach alongside the incredible Costa Rica rainforest at Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge.

 

To help get you in the holiday spirit, here are some of the fun activities the Nicuesa Lodge staff has planned for you.

 

There will be special dinners on Dec. 24 for Christmas Eve and Dec. 31 for New Year’s Eve. The gala feasts will include roast pork, grilled whole fresh fish caught by Nicuesa staff, and other

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9009114289?profile=originalChoosing to stay at eco-friendly hotels when you travel is a great way to help the planet. Now there is a simply way to make greener travel choices. The travel review website TripAdvisor has devised a certification program to help people make environmental travel choices to stay at eco-friendly accommodations around the world.

Called TripAdvisor GreenLeaders, the program awards badges at different status levels to eco-friendly hotels, lodges and B&Bs, from budget to luxury, that are all committed

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Creamy, gooey, mouth-melting, milk, white, dark, bitter, sweet … chocolate melts our hearts not just our taste buds.

Cacao-beans-photo-courtesy-of-Smithsonian-Magazine-300x161.jpg?width=300As the story goes, chocolate was once considered gold. Prized by the Aztecs and Mayans, and formerly reserved only for royalty in Europe, chocolate has held an irresistible allure for cultures worldwide over the past 4,000 years. In some areas, chocolate beans were even used as currency.

Chocolate comes from the seeds of the cacao fruit tree, which originated in the Americas, and g

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9008915679?profile=originalIf you visited the beautiful property of Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge four decades ago, instead of a high-end Costa Rica eco-lodge, you would have found only “chocolate trees.”

 

Cacao tree plantations were once plentiful in Costa Rica’s southernmost region of the Golfo Dulce and Osa Peninsula. Cacao was an important export market for Costa Rica until the fungus blight called Monilia destroyed 95% of production in 1979.

 

On the Chocolate Tour at Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge, you will learn abo

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