| I had long wanted to visit Costa Rica. Travelers | | | | tours or take a guided rainforest walk. Later, try |
| from around the world had extolled its virtues - a | | | | one of the many hot baths. |
| land of great natural beauty with the Caribbean on | | | | EASTERN CARIBBEAN - COSTA RICA |
| one side, the Pacific on the other and a lot of wild | | | | Tortuguero Costa Rica - National Park |
| mountains and rainforests and friendly people in | | | | A long journey through a banana plantation we |
| between. | | | | reached north of Puerto Limon. From where |
| On my Costa Rica holiday, this was not | | | | adventurous tourists take a shallow-draught boat |
| immediately apparent in San José, the | | | | to Tortuguero, and get to see the wildlife at close |
| grubby little capital in a highland valley. There are | | | | quarters on canoe trips through the sort of jungle |
| no elegant structures, but no one ever said that | | | | favoured by Indiana Jones. |
| Costa Rica was known for architecture. Its | | | | The gods did not design the Atlantic coast of |
| beauty lies not in its buildings but in its | | | | Costa Rica for mass tourism. It is hot and humid, |
| environment. | | | | and characterised by mangroves, swamps and |
| NORTHERN COSTA RICA | | | | rain. The local joke is that it rains 15 months a |
| Monteverde Costa Rica - Cloud Forest | | | | year. Because of the nature of the land, or rather |
| Driving northwest of San Jose we travelled up | | | | the lack of it; there are no roads in or out of the |
| into the clouds to Monteverde, the most peaceful | | | | Tortuguero National Park which encompasses a |
| place on Earth. Monteverde is a place to make | | | | coastal swamp forest interlaced with rivers and |
| oneself at home in an eco-friendly lodge and settle | | | | canals. This is good news for a colony of green |
| into the beauty of the Tilaran Mountains. | | | | sea turtles that breeds there, as well as a |
| This stems from a community of Quaker | | | | menagerie of monkeys and sloths and anteaters |
| farmers who arrived in the area from Alabama in | | | | and iguanas and crocodiles and frigate birds and |
| 1950, after refusing to register for military service | | | | kingfishers. |
| in the United States. At the time, they were | | | | Poison-arrow frogs |
| looking for somewhere they could raise dairy | | | | It is useful in such places to have a guide who |
| cattle, without being called upon to shoot anybody. | | | | knows where to find tiny, scarlet poison-arrow |
| They chose Costa Rica largely because it had | | | | frogs, and to explain the life and death dramas |
| taken the surprising but enlightened decision to | | | | enacted on Heliconia atisphata. This is a plant with |
| abolish its armed forces, following a brief civil war. | | | | strings of red beak-shaped fruits that attracts |
| To this day the little country of about four million | | | | humming birds which feed on its nectar, and in the |
| people has no army, no navy and no air force. | | | | process transfer pollen dusted on their foreheads. |
| The Quakers soon grew harmony with nature | | | | Unfortunately this little-known fact is common |
| and their neighbours. From the beginning they had | | | | knowledge among eyelash vipers, who lie in wait |
| been careful to preserve the forest above their | | | | for humming bird suppers. |
| land, and now the botanists and the tourists were | | | | Veragua Rainforest Adventure: |
| coming, and this benefited the wider community. | | | | On our return, we visited the area's newest |
| "I'm content, I've been able to live according to | | | | attraction, the Veragua Rainforest Research |
| my conscience," Says Alejandro, one of the first | | | | & Adventure Park, located 40 minutes from |
| Quakers to have settled there. "There is a sense | | | | the town of Limon. The Veragua experience, with |
| of achievement." | | | | guided tour and lunch, includes a gondola tram ride |
| "I don't feel I am the owner, how can anyone | | | | through the rainforest canopy, a butterfly garden, |
| own a forest that has existed for thousands of | | | | a reptile vivarium, a hummingbird garden, the |
| years?" he said quite sensibly as we strolled | | | | largest nocturnal indoor frog garden in the world, |
| towards his house through a meadow. "I think of | | | | spectacular walking trails through the primary |
| myself more as a custodian." | | | | rainforest, a grand waterfall and a working |
| Arenal Costa Rica - Volcano | | | | scientific research station. |
| Like most travellers, we travelled to Arenal | | | | "Everything has a purpose, and everything is |
| volcano, the most spectacular feature of Costa | | | | recycled," Diego, our guide observes. He explains |
| Rica. Travellers generally contend themselves with | | | | that the leaves and mosses of cloud forests act |
| seeing the volcano but there is more to that. The | | | | as condensing surfaces, converting mist into drops |
| vegetation in the region is exotic. I was drawn to | | | | of water that nourish the forest and form |
| every plant, to every flower that I admit, had not | | | | streams that provide local communities with fresh |
| seen before. | | | | water. He has an expression for this perennial |
| The last time the Arenal volcano blew its top on | | | | cycle. Ecological karma, he calls it. |
| July 29, 1968, it wiped out two villages, killed 80 | | | | The government shares his appreciation of |
| people an incinerated 45,000 head of cattle. When | | | | wilderness areas, and has passed laws protecting |
| we walked to its base, it continued its ominous | | | | more than a quarter of the country in one form |
| rumblings like an angry bull terrier tied to a mast | | | | or another. The ethos of a country that prefers |
| and belching ash and lava at us. The region is | | | | wildlife to warfare is summed up by a popular |
| spawned with resorts from which one can | | | | T-shirt bearing a declaration by a North American |
| observe its fiery convulsion; from a respectful | | | | native chief in 1854. "Only when the last tree has |
| distance. | | | | died and the last river has been poisoned and the |
| It is also an activity destination; you can go biking, | | | | last fish has been caught will we realise that we |
| hiking, horseback riding, quad biking and canopy | | | | cannot eat money. |