Costa Rica

I traveled to only a few of the country's 39 national parks, reserves, and wildlife refuges, and I did not sample every ecosystem, which ranged from dry pacific forest to mountain paramo. But I did ride in the back of a collective truck taxi on roads that went through riverbeds, in a 5-passenger airplane that landed on dirt airstrips carved out of jungles, in a harness that took me up 120 feet into the rainforest canopy, and on a homemade cable car on a pulley across a rainforest gorge. I explored a coral reef in the Caribbean Sea and waded in surf on a Pacific Ocean beach; I swam in waterfall pools with toucans perched on overhanging branches; I held a scarlet macaw recovering from injuries at a refuge; I hiked in a rainforest and kayaked in a mangrove lagoon; and I feasted royally on peasant fare in restaurants without walls.

The richness of the wildlife and the interrelationships among species is beyond imagination. Fluorescent colored poison dart frogs, saucer-sized blue morpho butterflies, three-toed sloths and raccoon-like coatis, eerie-sounding roars from howler monkeys, leaf-cutter ants forming moving garlands of green across the forest floor, trees with bright orange patterned bark (variously called "naked Indian" or "sunburned gringo"), strangler fig vines bigger than the trees they smother, orchids adorning trees, thousand-year-old trees that smell like garlic, trees that keep climbing predators off and protect nesting birds with their thorns, prehistoric-looking basiliscus lizards who run upright across the water…..so many wonders!

The most wonderful parts of the trip were the visits to small community tourism projects (see next article) and a night-time turtle patrol. I was fortunate enough to watch a massive leatherback turtle laboriously dig a nest in sand, lay her eggs (into a plastic bag quietly held by a volunteer who would move them to a safer site), cover the nest and move sand around a nearby spot so that predators would be drawn to it as a decoy, and haul herself back down the beach and into the waves, followed by hushed volunteers with red-cellophaned flashlights, as if in a sacred ceremony.

Lodgings in themselves were wonderful, too, with much creative use of tropical wood and often a shower open to a garden area. Many lodges had yoga decks, and the dining areas were mostly open-air places adjoining areas for sitting and watching the wildlife. Rustic cabins in the villages, tent lodges near the beach, and cottages with more comfort all had the sounds of nature coming through open windows to start the day. Meals in the villages featured rice and beans, with each cook having a different touch, and were accented by local vegetables. At one forest lodge, the guide cut down a young palm tree before the morning's walk, and the cook served it up as a heart-of-palm salad for lunch. Mangoes and pineapples appeared at breakfasts, and the variety of fruit juices seemed endless.

You can see worlds in a small part of this country, or take in the wonders of more than one region. I've already concluded that one visit to Costa Rica is not enough for me!

For more information, read The New Key to Costa Rica, by Beatrice Blake and Anne Becher, and take note of the Sustainable Ecotourism Rating system for lodgings. www.keytocostarica.com