Costa Rica is located in the southern part of the isthmus of Central America. It stretches south from Nicaragua to Panama and has long beachfronts on both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Its size is 19,652 square miles, which if it were a state would rank it as 42nd in size between West Virginia (24,231) and Maryland (12,407). You can see a map of Costa Rica at http://www.visitcostarica.com/ict/paginas/mapas/ciudades.asp.

Here's the weather in Costa Rica. (For a city/town near where we will be, pick San Jose from the list.)

At least 1.5 million tourists visit Costa Rica each year and 43% of them are from the United States. That’s a lot of tourists given that the total population is only a little over 4 million. As with other Latin America countries, most people are Roman Catholic (75%), with only 14% indicating they are Protestant.

While we are there we’ll take some time to see some of the surrounding country. The geography of Costa Rica is very diverse. It has both white and black sand beaches, volcanoes, rain forests, waterfalls, and rivers. The country is considered one of the most bio-diverse regions in the world and it is divided in 20 natural parks, 8 biological reserves, and a series of protected areas. I’ll bet you didn’t know that there is butterfly farm (that’s right, a farm of butterflies) where you can watch butterflies flutter by near the San Jose, the capital. More about that at http://www.butterflyfarm.co.cr/tbf/index.htm.

We should be able to go to the beach and go see a coffee plantation and a rain forest. We might be able to go in an aerial tram that goes through the tree tops of a tropical forest—over 100 feet above the jungle floor—where we could see the rain forest canopy and animals, such as tree frogs, vine snakes, sloths, and hundreds of bird species.

You can get more info on Costa Rica at http://www.visitcostarica.com/ict/paginas/home.asp?ididioma=2 and at http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/destinations/central-america/costa-rica.

Page updated: May 30, 2006