Why Costa Rica

 Costa Rica occupies a unique position in Central America. It is just north of the equator, and sandwiched between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Despite being so south, it is not strictly tropical. There are all sorts of mountains (and volcanoes) down the centre, and consequently all sorts of micro climates. Central America itself has a unique situation, as a land bridge between North and South America. Before the bridge formed (around nine million years ago) the ecologies of the continents formed independently. Once Central America moved into position, its ecology became a free for all.

Costa Rica sent a long time as an impoverished Spanish colony. By the mid 20th century, it remained a "banana republic", also exporting a lot of coffee. In a development that I have not seen described in much detail, the country began a transformation toward high tech industry and ecotourism. Part of the ecotourism movement was the establishment of numerous national parks. Today, 28% of the land area is protected, in 90 separate areas.

Associated with this are numerous eco-lodges, private gardens, and tropical research stations. Our two nature loving girls picked up on this years ago, and made several trips to the country. We were sort of dimly aware of all this, but even today I am wearing a tee shirt depicting a monkey and a zipline, advertising a Canopy Tour at the Arenal volcano. The tee shirt is from 1998, indicating both at least how long our family has been into Costa Rica and how infrequently I change over my wardrobe!



When that birder in Yucatan started the Costa Rica wheels spinning in our heads, we did our own research on what tours and activities might be available. Of course, there are many tour companies and types of activities. Aside from birding and canopy tours, one can do "canyoning", hiking, rafting, snorkeling and scuba diving, sportfishing, and surfing. Those are all chapter titles from one of the many books that daughter Laurie dropped off for us. Notably absent, of course, is cycle touring. As we are saying, we suspect Costa Rica will not attract us much as a cycling destination.

As often happens when you want to shop carefully but don't really have the time for it, we landed on one tour company, Costa Rica Focus. They impressed us with rapid response times and good English, but all the offerings were way over what we were accustomed to spending daily in European cycle touring. We told them to forget it, but at the last minute they tossed us a possibility that while still wildly costly from our point of view, was still possible if we broke piggy banks that had long been resting unmolested under our beds.

The tour we went for is called "Station to Station". It includes visits to research  locations La Selva and Las Cruces, as well as Savegre Lodge, Cerro Lodge, Talari Lodge, Carara National Park and the Tarcoles River Estuary. I don't really have the comparative cost details, but I think the reason the company thought this was cheaper was that it involves a group, of ten people, and perhaps the lodges and stations are less luxurious than might otherwise be offered. Still, all meals and accommodation plus guide and  transport are included. About $USD 8000 for 12 days. That's 5x the daily total cost we reported for our cycle tour in France and Spain just completed. What do you think? Could it ever be worth it?




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