The incredibly biodiverse area of Tortuguero should definitely be on your “bucket list” of places to see in Costa Rica. Called the “Little Amazon” of Costa Rica, Tortuguero on the northern Caribbean Coast is an untamed stretch of wild jungle and desolate beaches. You have swamp, lagoons, canals, marshy islands, dense rainforest, black sand beaches,...Read More
The peaceful and shy Manatee has been declared a national marine mammal in Costa Rica. Costa Rica lawmakers this week passed the bill making the endangered Caribbean mammal a national symbol; the honor had been proposed by two school children from the region of Limón after they learned about Manatees in school. Also known as...Read More
Bats are mammals with a bad reputation – their good name stained with images of blood and vampires by Hollywood. The truth is that bats are an important part of the environment, helping with pest control, spreading seeds and pollinating plants. Of the approximate 1,100 bat species on Earth, 112 of them are found in...Read More
If bird-watching is your passion, then you definitely want to add Costa Rica to your “Top 10 list of places to go birding.” The small Central American country is home to more than 870 bird species – more than in all of the United States, Canada and Mexico combined – and is a bird-watching hotspot....Read More
The Tortuguero coast in Costa Rica is a 22-mile-long, desolate, volcanic black sand beach littered with driftwood and tree logs tossed up on shore from the untamed ocean. It is a wild place – like the imaginary jungle coast in Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.” There is nothing but beach and low, swampy...Read More
Sarapiquí is one of my favorite places in Costa Rica. Rust red-orange earth meets up with jade green water of the Sarapiqui River, next to fluorescent green grass and darker emerald-green, thick rainforest. Jewel-toned birds and butterflies swoop here and there, and this time of year, the cicadas bring a tumultuous cacophony to the sunshine....Read More
Personally, I prefer staying in small boutique hotels. Large chain hotels have their function, though I rather like when the receptionist remembers my name and is personable enough to care how I am and how my stay is going. I like waiters who remember I favor water without ice and that my mid-afternoon coffee is...Read More
They live in the sea, are on the World Wildlife Fund’s “Endangered Species List”, and frequent the waters around Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast Tortuguero National Park. Their lives, though on similar paths, are a bit conflicted. I’m talking about sea turtles and manatees. One draws crowds of up to 50,000 tourists each year; the other...Read More
Tortuguero is like the imaginary jungle coast in Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.” It is a wild place. You can just imagine what was going through Christopher Columbus’ mind when he anchored off the palm-fringed beach in 1502 … “I have come to the end of the earth,” he must have mused. The...Read More
The Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica counts many superb sights and attractions. You have the canals and sea turtle nesting beaches of the Tortuguero National Park, the marvelous beaches of Cahuita and Puerto Viejo, the Afro-Caribbean port town of Limon, the wild beauty of the Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife and Marine Refuge, and the impressive Talamanca Mountains,...Read More
