Costa Rican Adventure

Jump into Caribbean jewel Tortuguero, whose national park is packed with wildlife and ecological habitats. Most known for its sea turtle nesting grounds, the park also counts manatees, ocelots, and giant iguanas and numerous other impressive creatures as inhabitants. In the adjacent logging town of Tortuguero, sandy trails link funky wooden houses.

Run by the American Caribbean Conservation Corps, this museum centres on the corps’ work with the park’s sea turtle population. Learn about the area’s ecology through life-sized exhibits and videos.

Get up close with some of Tortuguero’s coolest inhabitants. Make your way through the park’s narrow waterways, where the overhanging vegetation can bring 300 species of birds, 168 species of reptiles and amphibians, and 60 species of mammals right up under your nose.

Travel into the Talamanca Region and visit the Cahuita National Park. Known as "The Bluff" until 1915, the park is one of the most popular Costa Rican destinations. Thousands of coconut trees line the Creole beach of Cahuita, which is a translation of two Miskito Indian words—kawi (a small tree used to make dugout canoes) and ta (a point of land). The 593-acre reef offers you 34 species of coral, over 100 of seaweed, 500 species of fish and two old shipwrecks complete with cannons. The trail is alive with bright blue morpho butterflies, land crabs and monkeys. Cross the shallow stream of Rio Perezoso, which is coloured red from the tannic acid of decomposed vegetation.

Let the volcanoes take you away. At Arenal’s hot springs, bubbling lava fields heat the waters to make nature’s own jacuzzi. Take the chance to rest in the steamy water, or get more adventurous on waterslides, under waterfalls, or in the natural saunas.

Glide along the still waters reflecting the perfect cone of Arenal Volcano and the surrounding rolling hills. Lake Arenal, the country's largest, is also among its most scenic, and the area has become popular area to kayak, windsurf, sail, fish, and hike.

Stop by a local farm to meet the family living and working there, and then join them in trying a local specialty known as "agua de pipa" --coconut water straight from a freshly picked coconut!

Because of its humidity and latitude, the entire city of Monteverde can disappear in a second under a massive cloud cover. Founded by Quakers in 1951, the city boasts the best in Costa Rican creatures. Observe a proud display of howler monkeys, revered quetzals and native frogs in the dense cover of the cloud forest.

Get your spider monkey fix as you climb into the clouds. The Santa Elena Reserve reaches high into the atmosphere, bringing the cloudy mists into its lush forests and letting you see all the way to the Arenal Volcano.

In 1987, a nine-year-old Swedish student asked what he could do to save the rainforests, and Children’s Eternal Cloud Forest was born. The Monteverde Conservation League oversees the planting of deforested land and virgin rainforest in the Children’s Forest and throughout the area, and now owns more than 22,000 hectares. Contribute your green thumb efforts to their conservation work.

Fluttering wings of red and yellow hop from flower to flower in Monteverde’s impressive Butterfly Garden, founded by biologist Jim Wolfe and his wife Marta Iris Salazar. Get a broader look at Costa Rican flora and fauna at the Ecolodge, a University of Georgia satellite campus. The visitor-friendly farm offers hiking, horseback riding, bird-watching and night walks, and the residents are always happy to discuss their work in sustainable agriculture throughout the area.