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Contents:
» San José as departure point
» Costa Rica a country with many natural beauties
» La Laguna del Lagarto Lodge
» Aquatic sports in Guanacaste
» Scuba diving in the Pacific
San José is a departure point from where it is possible to make trips to any part of the country. In spite of being the capital of the country, it is a city that by its size and infrastructure has much to offer the tourist. For some people, to speak of tourism in Costa Rica, is to speak of their beautiful beaches, impressive volcanoes, cloudy forest, its forests and the great range of birds in the country. And, lamentably many do not take the time to discover the attractiveness of the pleasant and hospitable city of San José.
San José is a city lent to walking and to visit its museums, markets, churches and other places of interest for the tourist. Sundays you can enjoy a long walk to the Plaza Cultural, a place of amusements for the inhabitants of the city, to where they go to find out the events that the day has to offer.
In the Museum of Jade, aside from a magnificent collection of jade objects, you will also be able to appreciate a series of wonderful ceramics, stones and miniatures of gold that are testimony of the cultural history of different areas of the country. In the Gold Museum you will be able to appreciate a valuable collection of gold pieces of the Pre-Columbian world. For the interested ones, there is in addition a rare collection of bills and currencies.
The National Theater is a construction from 1897, to the style Renaissance, and without doubt one of the most interesting buildings that the country has. The Costa Ricans love their theater. Annually they give 300 presentations of dance, musical comedies or theater, many of them are very popular and the tickets are sold out very fast.
Costa Rica offers innumerable beauties and adventures to the tourist. Logically, the fact that it is one of the oldest and more stable democracies of America, gives to the tourist security and tranquillity. In Costa Rica you can breathe a climate of peace in all the territory. The best thing of our country is its people, warm and amiable; and of course we have many natural beauties: beaches of sand in diverse colors: brown, gray, white, beige, pink of black shells. In short, you can choose the beach in which you want to be.
In the North Pacific the beaches are most beautiful, the climate is very pleasant, sunny and drier. At Playa Tamarindo and Playa Grande the sea turtles arrives to spawn. Playa Flamingo, Nosara, Samara, Graza, Montezuma are some of beaches of great beauty of the peninsula.
In the Central Pacific the most popular is the Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio, an area protected next to the sea, with great diversity of fauna and flora. Playa Jacó only 2 hours from San José offers innumerable services of lodging, feeding and nightlife.
In the South Pacific the climate is more humid, with great amount of virgin forests that are interlaced with the sea. A pleasure for the tourist who looks for extensive deserted beaches and a direct contact with the nature. Corcovado National Park, Bay Drake and Golfito in the Peninsula de Osa are destinations for those who wishes the contact with the nature, the sea, the sun or enjoy fishing.
On the Atlantic side you will find Tortuguero, a forest of Amazonian style, with its channels filled with animal life and flora of paradisiacal exuberance and another place for the sea turtles to spawn. To the south on the Atlantic coast are the most visited beaches of this zone, Cahuita and Puerto Viejo, with all the flavor of the Caribbean in their meals, vegetation and style of life.
For those who do not wish to go to the beach, Costa Rica also has beautiful mountains and lots of volcanoes. The Irazú, one of the highest volcanoes, from whose crater in a clear day, both coasts can be observed: the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Poás volcano, with one of the greatest craters of the world offers a beautiful view from its top and the option to walk down its side to the lagoon. And of course most impressive, the Volcano Arenal, in total activity, located in the North zone. This imposing volcano, famous by its wonderful eruptions, is next to the Arenal Lagoon. The eruptions from this colossus can in clear nights, and from almost any near point, be observed as artificial fireworks. There are also the magnificent hot springs from where you some night can observe the Arenal sending luminous eruptions, while enjoying the relaxing hot water cascade with a drink in the hand. There are many great places to stay overnight, especially in La Fortuna. Does it sound like paradise?
Monteverde, a cloud forest, another of the much-visited destinations, just like the Park Braulio Carrillo, are some of the protected natural areas under the regime of the National Parks. These are some of the good reasons to visit Costa Rica and that has made us famous in the whole world.
As an alternative you can simply remain in the Central Valley, where it's never cold, nor very hot, the temperature is warm and fresh throughout the year and from here you can plan your tours. There are more volcanoes, more beaches, more mountains and much more to see and to do in Costa Rica, but that is impossible to describe with few words. The best thing is to come and experience Costa Rica.
Written by: Erich F Barrantes, Hotel Orquídeas Inn, Alajuela
I came to Costa Rica in 1974 as an International Bank Executive and never in my wildest dreams thought that this would become my permanent home and less that I will wind up as owner of a Jungle Lodge.
It all goes back to my family who owned a farm in East Germany, where I grew up. Due to the World War II we had to leave it behind, but I always dreamt of having a large piece of land that I could call my very own. This dream materialized in 1981. I had the opportunity to buy 110 hectares of prime rainforest in the northern part of Costa Rica, near a small hamlet called Boca Tapada, about 12 km. south of the San Juan River on the border to Nicaragua and 2 km. east of the San Carlos River.
For quite some time I did not know what to do with the newly acquired land. It came to my mind to convert this rainforest into agricultural productive land, by cutting the trees down and planting either pineapple, pepper, cacao or heart of palms. At that time the word "ecology" was not yet heard in Costa Rica and there were hardly any restrictions for deforestation.
At a cocktail party in San José, while discussing with a friend what to do he advised not to deforest this beautiful land, but instead to keep it prime and only mark some trails and build a small lodge. I was ready to go into Ecotourism, a brand new word in Costa Rica. So I started first in 1989 with one unit consisting of four rooms, two rooms sharing one bathroom and a spacious balcony with view to one of the lagoons.
At that time there was no electricity in the place and, not liking the noise of a generator, I installed solar panels. After two years of favorable comments from visitors, I decided to convert it into an economically self-sustaining lodge of 20 rooms and formally opened up for business in November 1992. I was very lucky that a large German travel agency took the lodge into their program and sent me each week groups of about 25 tourists for a two-night stay, which covered from opening day the operating expenses. The beginning was nevertheless, very difficult. The buses with the first groups could not get right to the lodge. The loggers had destroyed the road in such a way, that people had to walk the last 1 1/2 Km. and we had to haul the suitcases up to the hotel by jeep. The tourist did not mind, because they enjoyed the lush tropical surroundings and the quietness, only interrupted by the sounds of the jungle and the songs of the "early morning birds".
In addition to the 110 hectare of rainforest, I bought another 180 hectare of pasture land and secondary forestland. I reforested 40 hectare left 82 hectare as natural re-growth under a Government supervised forest protection plan, made two more lakes and left about 30 hectare as pasture for the horses the tourists use. Then planted 22 hectare with "Heart of Palms" in order to satisfy my agricultural instinct. The example has convinced our neighbor to maintain 400 hectare of rainforest, so that our lodge is actually surrounded by 640 hectare of prime privately owned rainforest.
What really makes this story a special one is the economic impact the Lodge has made on the area, the modern development of the region, its people and the awareness of what ecology really means.
The Lodge has not only created direct employment, but also indirect income to new small enterprises. A local fellow bought himself two river motor boats, with our financial assistance and we contract him for the boat tours offered to our guests on the San Carlos and San Juan rivers. Presently, he has repaid us the loan and operates a prosperous business, giving service not only to us, but also to other people. The small restaurant at the border post at the confluence of the San Carlos and San Juan rivers, practically lives from the guests the Lodge brings to this place on the boat trips.
The Lodge has not only opened the door for the tourist to see the New World, but has offered its employees the opportunity to see the world outside. Our cook, Adolfo, a refugee from Nicaragua, started as a simple farm worker. By shear accident we discovered his talent for cooking, sent him to the next town to a restaurant for training and he developed into an excellent cook. All guests praise his culinary art, to the extent that a German tourist invited him for three months to Germany, all expenses paid, to bring the "Costarican Cuisine" to the Old World.
Another example is our young Assistant Manager and local tourist guide, Oscar, who comes from a nearby small farm family. We sent him to San José to take English lessons, then, through my Rotary connections, he was invited for two months by a Rotary family in the United States to improve his English and now he speaks it fluently and has turned into an excellent tourist and birdwatchers guide.
As already indicated, I am member of the San José Rotary Club and through our connections with the Clubs in the U.S.A., we are sponsoring five schools in this area, all of them rather remote and very poor, lacking the most basic supplies. We brought two years in a row a group of four Rotarian dentists from the U.S.A. to Boca Tapada with all their equipment to give three and a half days free dental service to the people in the area.
Due to the presence of the hotel, we could convince the state-owned Electricity Company to connect the village and the hotel with the public electricity net. Our example brought a new sense of self-confidence to the people. At the beginning, when I built the hotel, they were very skeptical, and thought it a crazy idea, no tourist will come to this godforsaken place. But when they saw the success, the village people now come to us for advice on all kinds of new projects they want to implement to create new employment. They are proud that Boca Tapada shows now on all the maps and in most of the international tourist guides and that it even appears on international TV programs.
We are very proud to have proven how tourism can contribute to the development of a poor isolated area. How we value the richness of the rainforest and how we, in some way, have contributed to the awareness, that to maintain and preserve the rainforest for future generations, can be more profitable than cutting it down.
Written by: Vinzenz A. Schmack, La Laguna del Lagarto Lodge, Boca Tapada
The possibility of making aquatic sports in Costa Rica is ideal, by its different types from beaches. In Playa Hermosa of Guanacaste, one of the best beaches of Costa Rica, you can try surfing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, wakeboarding and seakayaking. You can rent the equipment at Sun Tours and Fun. We have a school for beginners and we even pick you up at the hotel if you want to.
Written by: Nicola Bertoldi, Blue Dream Hotel & Spa, Playa Papaturro
Costa Rica lend itself to make almost any activity that comes to your mind. Nevertheless the activity that perhaps call more attention is scuba diving. You get a contact with another world, the marine. In the waters of Guanacaste you can find manta rays, white sharks, small and great shoals of fish, eels, lobsters, and many species more.
Ocotal Beach Resort, offers everything you need, you do not have to worry about anything. Stay with us, and if you wish to dive, we provided everything, we have a dive shop, well equipped so you have everything at your reach.
The same happens if some of our guests wishes to go fishing, the hotel provides everything from the baits to the boats equipped for the activity. In the Gulf of Papagayo you can find marlins, sailfish, yellowfin tuna and many more.
Definitively your vacation will be unforgettable if you come to Costa Rica, and still more if you stay at Ocotal Beach Resort. We are waiting for you!
Written by: Adriana Castro E, Ocotal Beach Resort, Playas de Nicoya
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