Costa Rica is a well know destination today for tourists, and the development of Eco-tourism has brought about a new vacation trend that attracts a certain kind of people, the kind of people that this country needs.

A couple of decades ago, Costa Rica was very different from what it looks like now; Tamarindo had about three hotels and more than basic camping. Manuel Antonio had two hotels. Pollution and dirty beaches were unknown, deforestation had started, mostly for clearing cattle pastures, but unfortunately nobody really knew and everywhere was so green there seemed to be little cause for concern. For those looking for a little comfort however, it was hard to find outside of the capital. Most hotels were quite basic, offering no luxuries such as air conditioning, nice bedding or bathroom equipment, no TV, no fancy food, etc. It was pure Eco-tourism for the very reason that there was no capacity for large developments and nothing to appreciate but nature.

Today the economy of the country relies mainly on tourism, however with it has brought massive destruction, pollution, Costa Rica sex tourism, deforestation and species in danger of extinction.

The new emerging Eco-tourism intends to use tourism revenue to benefit the local ecology and communities while allowing tourists to appreciate the amazing biodiversity and culture that the country offers. It is good that tourists now can enjoy higher standards and some degree of comfort and luxury while experiencing one of the wonders of the world. Even small hotels have gone on programs to improve their standards. However it all goes to pieces if something is not done to protect the flora and fauna of this little paradise.

Combining tourism and ecology is possible, as long as everyone agrees and understands what it entails. One definition of Ecotourism is “the practice of low-impact, educational, ecologically and culturally sensitive travel that benefits local communities and host countries”.

All in all it means that everyone benefits while no damage is done, and this is what is happening in this country. Lush tropical forests, gorgeous beaches, volcanoes, traversed by canopy tours, white water rafting, surfing, horse riding and trekking coexist with fine dinning and living in luxury with spas, and yoga facilities, etc. All this awaits after you experience the warm friendly welcome of the Ticos! Where else can all this come in a package? There is only one place and this is Costa Rica.

The variety of its mini ecosystems doesn’t stop to surprise visitors; in the city one moment, to the jungle 20 minutes later. Watching the sunrise on the Caribbean, enjoying the Sunset on the Pacific. Going from a pristine white beach to the tropical rain forest to the tundra of the mountains. Only one small country can offer so much, and those who can appreciate it will be received with the warmest and most satisfactory welcome. And it goes without saying; try the coffee, and the famous rice and beans. Enjoy a cocktail with Costa Rica’s national liquor “guaro” or the infamous Imperial beer while relaxing and enjoying a glorious sunset. Save yourself enough time to take a stroll down the pedestrian parkway of the capital city of San Jose and grab a coffee while you sit in a plaza watching the people stream by.

Taking a vacation to Costa Rica is the holiday of a lifetime, and you can have all this and leave no mark, so that no monkey, no macaws or jaguar will know that you were here! It is just a matter of doing your research and selecting tour agencies and hotels that openly support their environs. The good thing is that eco-tourism is a trend that’s here to stay, so your search should not take too much time!
Source: www.costaricapages.com

Greg Witt is an amazing adventure traveler, who has guided mountaineering expeditions in the Andes, hiked through African jungles, led archeological expeditions across Arabian deserts, dropped adventures into North American golden slot canyons, and explored Costa Rican cloud forests. So he’s the perfect author for the new book Ultimate Adventures: A Rough Guide to Adventure Travel.

Earlier this week, we invited our readers to ask Witt questions about how to make adventure travel affordable. Here’s the Q&A:

When I think of adventure travel, I think $$$. How can adventure travel be affordable? Ideas domestically?

There are certainly some pricey high-end options that are gear-intensive (kiteboarding, heliskiing, and windsurfing come to mind) but for less than a tank of gas you can find some wonderful hiking trails wherever you live. A canoe or sea kayak can be a modest investment or an inexpensive rental, and can open up thousands of miles of nearby paddle trails to your use. I purchased both my first pair of cross-country skis and snowshoes on close-out for less than $50 and they’ve still given me hundreds of miles of use. Even for an extended vacation, a guided river trip or a fully outfitted backcountry experience is no more expensive than staying in a hotel, and eating meals in restaurants.
Specific ideas domestically for a week long vacation? Paddling in the Everglades or the Boundary Waters, hiking in the Colorado or Glacier National Park, canyoneering or hiking in southern Utah or the Grand Canyon. Even outside the US, a week of sea kayaking in the Sea of Cortez or a river trip in Canada is accessible and affordable.

Costa Rica’s financial sector includes the Central Bank, 3 state-owned commercial banks, 19 private commercial banks (including one jointly owned state bank), 1 workers’ bank, 1 state-owned mortgage bank and 4 mutual house-building companies, 15 private finance companies and 27 savings and loans cooperatives. In addition, there are 30 investment and retirement funds or trusts run by both state and private commercial banks and the state insurance company.

Lying on the Pacific Northwest Coast, just south of Tamarindo, one of the most popular destinations on the North Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, is the exotic and sandy beach of Playa Langosta. Known for its amazing surfing and gorgeous beachfront bed and breakfasts that line the shore, Playa Langosta is ideal for those who want to have some fun while enjoying the stunning beauty of the area. A mostly rocky shoreline with small pockets of sandy beach, Playa Langosta is definitely worth visiting especially if you happen to be in the Tamarindo area.

A great beach for a quiet stroll, Playa Langosta at its southern end sits near the mouth of an estuary and has an excellent surf break here, attracting surfers from Tamarindo who prefer to surf amid some peace and quiet. However, be warned that Playa Langosta can get pretty crowded in the high season when tourists and locals come here to enjoy the area’s natural beauty.

Just 2.5 km from Tamarindo village, Playa Langosta is an excellent place to spend a peaceful day after being the very popular Tamarindo. Some 10 minutes away from the local airport in Tamarindo and around 50 minutes from the Daniel Oduber International Airport in Liberia. Also close to the Las Baulas National Park, come here between October and March to catch a glimpse of the leatherback turtles that nest in the area.

Tourism ranks second in revenue generating for Costa Rica . The country has not been overdeveloped with mega resorts and volume group travel. Hotels and resorts outside the capital city of San Jose are small, which limits the number of travelers coming into the country; therefore, beaches, parks, nature preserves and rivers are not taken over by tourists.

Deep water fishing on the Pacific and Tarpon/Snook fishing on the Atlantic are world class. River rafting class 1 to the exhilarating rapids is a favorite here. Lake Arenal is referred to as have the number 1 wind surfing conditions in the World. Snorkeling and diving are fast becoming popular on both coasts.

Costa Rica is located on the Central American isthmus, 10° North of the equator and 84° West of the Prime Meridian. It borders both the Caribbean Sea (to the east) and the North Pacific Ocean (to the west), with a total of 1,290 kilometers (802 mi) of coastline (212 km / 132 mi on the Caribbean coast and 1,016 km / 631 mi on the Pacific). It is about the size of West Virginia and shares that state’s reputation for excellent whitewater kayaking/rafting opportunities.

Costa Rica is home to a rich variety of plants and animals. While the country has only about 0.1% of the world’s landmass, it contains 5% of the world’s biodiversity.Around 25% of the country’s land area is in protected national parks and protected areas, the largest percentual of protected areas in the world.

One national park that is internationally-renowned among ecologists for its biodiversity (including big cats and tapirs) and where visitors can expect to see an abundance of wildlife is the Corcovado National Park.

Playa Blanca (White Beach) is Costa Rica’s top-ranked beach and is located at Hotel Punta Leona on the Central Pacific coast. Playa Blanca is a spectacular 3/4 mile white sand beach in a 750-acre private biological reserve. It is what you envision when you think of a tropical beach: blue water, gentle waves lapping on the white sand, palm trees jutting out over the sand, and a gentle ocean breeze. Here you can snorkel, boogie board, swim safely, or just enjoy the scenery in tropical splendor.

Many of our guests prefer Playa Blanca to Manuel Antonio National Park. Frankly, we agree. Manuel Antonio is beautiful, but it has some drawbacks: it is often overcrowded, in a congested area, has a smaller beach, an entrance fee, beach vendors, no snorkeling and is 4 hours from San Jose.

Playa Blanca is only 90 minutes from San Jose, much larger, very safe, with limited access and no beach vendors. Playa Blanca is cleaner, and you can safely snorkel, boogie board and swim. Because Playa Blanca is in a 750-acre private biological reserve, hundreds of birds, plant and animal species thrive here. That’s why the Costa Rican Government recognizes Playa Blanca as the finest beach in Costa Rica!

The 12,016-hectare Parque Nacional Volcán Arenal lies within the 204,000-hectare Arenal Conservation Area, protecting eight of Costa Rica’s 12 life zones and 16 protected reserves in the region between the Guanacaste and Tilarán mountain ranges, and including Lake Arenal. The park has two volcanoes: Chato, whose collapsed crater contains an emerald lagoon surrounded by forest, and the perfectly conical Arenal. The park is most directly accessed from La Fortuna, but is also easily accessed via Tilarán and the north shore of Lake Arenal.
A joint project involving the Canadian International Development Agency and World Wildlife Fund Canada is helping local communities protect buffer zones where the land is under siege by drawing them into ecotourism. Several visitor sites provide toilets and drinking water. And trails and lookout points have been constructed.

New species of orchids continue to be discovered by researchers poking around in the tops of rain forest trees here and elsewhere, but the total number of species found to exist probably will not far exceed the more than 25,000 now known. I mention the tops of trees because most tropical orchids are epiphytic, that is they grow on the trunks or branches of trees rather than on the ground. Of the 1,200 plus species thus far catalogued from Costa Rica, 88% are epiphytes. Add to this the fact that rain forest canopy exploration is still in its infancy and it is only reasonable to expect that this is where most new orchid species will be found.

How and why the orchid family has managed to evolve so many species are still unanswered questions. Part of the how is undoubtedly the size of orchid seeds. A successfully pollinated orchid flower will produce a seed capsule that may contain as many as one million seeds. Each orchid seed is a dustlike particle easily capable of being carried far and wide by air currents. Theoretically, this should allow for the periodic establishment of populations of a given species at considerable distances from the original population. As a result of geographic isolation, each new population could eventually evolve into a distinct, and thus new, species.

It is little short of a miracle, however, that orchid seeds ever grow to become plants at all since each seed is so small that it carries scarce nourishment to maintain the tiny plant that sprouts if the seed should land somewhere with the appropriate conditions. All orchids rely on quickly establishing symbiotic relationships between their roots and fungus which aids them in nutrient uptake, at least during the seedling stages. Without this partnership with fungi, we would have no orchids.

The mechanisms that closely related species of orchids use to prevent the occurrence of hybrids in nature include flowering at different times of the year, a variety of ploys for attracting different pollinators, and sufficiently different flower structure so that even if the same pollinator, let’s say a bee, visits the flowers of two species, the pollen is placed on different parts of the bee’s body by each orchid species and therefore does not come in contact with the receptive part of the wrong species of flower. All rather complicated, but it seems to work in natural environments and to help maintain high species diversity.

Nevertheless, in fewer than 140 years, man has managed to achieve what evolution has worked so arduously to avoid. More than 50,000 artificially produced hybrids have now been registered, twice as many as naturally occurring orchid species.

It is curious that aside from their value as ornamentals, no economic uses have been found among the vast orchid family and all of the recent man-made crosses, with the single exception of a few species in the genus Vanilla, the commercial source of vanilla flavoring.
Source: www.infocostarica.com

The popularity of the Central Coast is attributed to its big three attractions — the monkey-packed Manuel Antonio National Park, a string of accessible beaches, and its close proximity to San José. Adventure tours are all the rage here — horseback riding down the beach, snorkeling in the Cabo Blanco Absolute Nature Reserve, and hang gliding in Jacó are just a few possibilities.

Hit the Beach: You’ll have no trouble finding a sunny stretch of sand, but chances are you won’t be alone. To escape the crowds, head to the neighboring beach towns Malpaís and Santa Teresa.

Filling Up: The menu at Playa de los Artistas, an open-air Mediterranean-style seafood restaurant, changes daily — perfect for repeat diners based in Montezuma.

Sleeping In: Guests at Docelunas can start their day in downward dog — the hotel offers yoga lessons in a glass-walled studio looking out over Jacó. For a room with a view, check into El Cafetal Inn, a delightful B&B outside of Atenas.

When to Go: Masses arrive during the dry season (late December-May), driving hotel prices up. Consider May to August, when the weather is sunny with occasional light rain.
Source: www.fodors.com

Paragliding is an up-and-coming sport in Costa Rica . It has really taken off with national as well as international tourism considering the beautiful sites for flying in Costa Rica .

Thanks to costaricasalesrentals.com