It's truly remarkable how much this small Central American country packs in, from shimmering beaches to live volcanoes to mysterious cloud forests. Despite pockets of overdevelopment, it's still an eco-tourism wonder. As they say in CR, "¡pura vida!"
Cover photo: rob Stoeltje
Reluctantly we left Tortuguero, the Amazon-like enclave on the Caribbean, and once more cruised down the river to meet the coach that was to take us up into the hills to this country´s adventure hub, the town of La Fortuna. On the way, at one place, we came across a level crossing sign. I thought Costa Rica had no railways? But here was a narrow gauge track, which didn't seem to have been used for some considerable time. Indeed, at one point a bridge had disappeared completely but the track…
Read more…Hugh Lansdown The sun had set and the stars above seemed brighter than I’ve ever seen them before. Floating in the warm waters of the Golfo Dulce, in Costa Rica‘s remote Osa Peninsula. tiny, bright green balls of light swirled around me – bioluminescent algae. Grinning uncontrollably and feeling like a twelve-year-old, I finally ran from the water and through the warm sprinklers of a nearby beach resort just off shore. It was my third time in two weeks visiting this hidden strip of beach in…
Read more…Keith Kellett A 2½-hour drive from capital San José, this a 769-square-kilometre (297-sq.-mile) national park on the country´s Caribbean coast boasts a variety of ecosystems, including rainforest, mangrove forest, swamps, beaches, and lagoons. The main way to get around (and reach its is by boat along its many waterways - including reaching its more than one dozen eco lodges and wildlife spotting.read post
Read more…Matthew Paulsen Beginning in the 1990s, this small Central American country essentially pioneered the ecotourism boom that has spread across the globe. Besides its vaunted Pacific and Caribbean beaches, packed into just 19,730 square miles - a good bit smaller than West Virginia and a bit over twice the size of Wales - Costa Rica boasts 29 national parks, 19 wildlife refuges, eight biological reserves, and an additional slew of protected areas. And here are a dozen of its most prized eco…
Read more…You need to be a member of Tripatini to add comments!
Comments are closed.
Comments
"...haphazard development, in tandem with warmer temperatures and rising seas that many scientists link to global warming, have vastly diminished the Pacific turtle population.
On a beach where dozens of turtles used to nest on a given night, scientists spied only 32 leatherbacks all of last year. With leatherbacks threatened with extinction, Playa Grande’s expansive turtle museum was abandoned three years ago and now sits amid a sea of weeds. And the beachside ticket booth for turtle tours was washed away by a high tide in September.
'We do not promote this as a turtle tourism destination anymore because we realize there are far too few turtles to please' said Álvaro Fonseca, a park ranger."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/science/earth/14turtles.html?_r=1...
"The World Economic Forum recently cited shoddy infrastructure as one of the few wrenches in the system that has softened Costa Rica’s competitive edge. In the bridge collapse, roadway officials had heard experts’ warnings years ago and might even have had funds set aside to prevent the bridge's inevitable collapse. The problem: slow-paced bureaucracy—another notorious wrench in Costa Rica—got in the way."
That said, this year's winner: Costa Rica! And I quote: "Costa Ricans report the highest life satisfaction in the world, have the second-highest average life expectancy of the Americas (second only to Canada) and have an ecological footprint that means that the country only narrowly fails to achieve the goal of ‘one-planet living’: consuming its fair share of the Earth’s natural resources."
My connection to Costa Rica goes back to elementary school, and I've long known that this is a very special country -- far from perfect, of course, but according to some measures it even puts the U.S. to shame. I'm looking forward to sharing more (and learning more from others) about this remarkable little country on go-lo.
-
4
-
5
-
6
-
7
-
8
of 8 Next