http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Central America Caribbean , Costa Rica en-us Tue, 21 May 2013 16:24:09 +0000 Tue, 21 May 2013 16:24:09 +0000 The world39s environmental grades have been posted by Yale University. So which countries are really walking the talk with their national environmental policies and actionsEuropean nations are at the top of the world class with a lone contender from the Americas Costa Rica placing 5th best in the world for its environmental performance according to the recent Environmental Performanc http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Manuel-Antonio/blog-787073.html Desde hace algunos aos los representantes de los ministerios de Turismo en Centroamrica han planeado una estrategia conjunta de promocin regional. Desde esa perspectiva se pretende que los excursionistas visiten varios pases en un mismo viaje. En tal sentido se impulsa un plan de sostenibilidad y calidad. Este incluye entre otros el fortalecimiento de la seguridad del rea. Tambi http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Santa-Teresa/blog-787066.html Costa Rica 2013 Day 4 Tortuguero Day 3 5am comes pretty early We were at the lodge39s docks by 515am. While we waited for our guide to arrive the lodge staff offered to bring us plates of fresh fruit for an impromptu breakfast so we ate some great fresh pineapple melon and watermelon while we waited. Pretty great considering they don39t serve breakfast until 7am. They even asked us http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Limon/Tortuguero-National-Park/blog-786918.html ltul styletextalign justifygtltul styletextalign justifygtAlrededor del 75 de las plantas y el 50 de los animales podran verse afectados durante los prximos 100 aos. ltul styletextalign justifygtltul styletextalign justifygtLos humanos no sern inmunes ante las consecuencias pues el agua y el aire tambin se vern afectados. ltul styletextali http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/blog-786868.html It was a bit like playing bumper cars in the middle of Roaring Rapids. There I was perched very alert in my hightech individual raftingtube bouncing off a rock to my left only to spin off a rock on my right and now speeding backwards down the chute to smack the huge wave in the Coca Cola rapid deadon. Facing the wrong way had its advantages the wave went over my head instead of right in http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/blog-786863.html Cosat Rica 2013 Day 3Tortuguero Day 2After our late night of unsuccessfully looking for turtles we woke up a bit later than usual... at 730am. Today is our 39th wedding anniversary so we plan on doing and eating whatever we want to. We39d already told the lodge staff we wouldn39t be eating dinner in the lodge. Around 830 or so one of the lodge staff knocked on our door and asked if w http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Limon/Tortuguero/blog-786696.html We allowed ourselves a bit of a sleep in this morning given our frantic week of bussing all around the country. We wandered 3 doors up from our hotel to a hostel that did 4 39big breakfasts39 fruit platter scrambled eggs toast coffee and of course Central America39s favourite dish rice and beans.The sun was already beating down on us and it felt like 100 humidity as even sitti http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Manuel-Antonio/blog-786681.html We were on the road relatively early again as we made our departure from Monteverde down out of the mountains and back down to sea level. The view was amazing as our little minibus spiralled its way along this windy gravel road. Rolling green mountains some of which were baked in sunshine whilst others were covered by low hanging cloud. Rach tried unsuccessfully to capture the moment the bumpi http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Manuel-Antonio/blog-786679.html We had a massive day today We had to be up at 6am so Olly naturally blasted out Troublemaker again at us Nooooo We had breakie included in our hotel for the next 2 days which was good for saving money as we are just burning through cash in Costa Rica cos it is so expensive It was simple fruit toast and some eggs but not too bad. We all piled into the van again and drove for about 20 mins http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Monteverde/blog-786675.html We were meeting at a relatively reasonable time this morning 8.30am. We had read that the Rainforest Cafe had the best reviews for food in La Fortuna and we only had one meal left to try it so we threw our stuff together and headed down the road to try it out. The coffee was fantastic. We are slowly getting used to having full cream milk. Its gonna be weird going back to skinny milk when we ar http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Monteverde/blog-786624.html Costa Rica Day 2Alajuela to TortugueroAfter a decent cup of coffee at the hostel we headed to the bus stop to start our trip to Tortuguero. Rather than bore you with the details of our extremely long trip to Tortuguero I39ll just to a brief synopsis. At right around 7am we boarded a Station Wagon bus to San Jose. The trip took about 20 minutes and cost about 600 Colones each. From the Es http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Limon/Tortuguero/blog-786571.html We woke up a little before 5 am to catch a 530 am bus to Quepos. We were told that someone at our hostel Chill Out Backpackers is always in the office by 5 am. This was not the case and since they had our 20 key deposit we were frantically trying to figure out what room the employee was in. Dan was banging on doors and I was livid that they weren39t there despite the fact that we specificall http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Quepos/blog-786512.html Costa Rica Day 1Our 6am flight from Pensacola to Atlanta went fine other than the fact that it was 6am in the morning We arrived in Atlanta with over an hour to spare before boaring the flight to San Jose Costa Rica. After getting the obligatory coffee from McDonalds we found out they wouldn39t be serving a meal during the flight so went back to McDonalds for carryout breakfast. It turn http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Alajuela/Alajuela/blog-786408.html I was awake relatively early this morning as our hotel is right on a busy street and given we don39t have aircon the windows are open to let at least some cooler air in. After catching up on blogs we went out for breakfast at the My Coffee cafe same place we enjoyed an arvo coffee from yesterday. After tentatively ordering pancakes Rach changed her mind when she saw the dessert menu...ber http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Alajuela/La-Fortuna/blog-785967.html We said our fond farewells to San Jose even though we39ll be unfortunately back next week and jumped into some waiting cabs at 8am. We arrived at the bus station and found our public bus that would take us the 4.5 hour journey north to La Fortuna. Looking at the map its unfortunate that we even had to go all the way down to San Jose to just turn around and hike back up from where we came fr http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Alajuela/La-Fortuna/blog-785937.html Not a great blog for me to write today as I havent been very well at all We woke up at about 9.30 which was a really good sleep as we were asleep by 11pm also. But we really needed it especially me as we had now worked out that I have a chest infection no need to explain why we knew so needed some bed time afer being awake at 4am yesterday and a long day of travelling Ben got up and went on t http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/San-Jose/blog-785936.html It was an early start this morning for our big travel day down to San Jose in Costa Rica. We got up and wearily made our way to our waiting minibus at 4.45am. The sun was just rising as we pulled up at the Ometepe Island ferry station and hopped on for the 1.5 hour journey back across Lake Nicaragua. We arrived back on the mainland said hello to our minibus driver who was the same guy who had d http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/San-Jose/San-Jose/blog-785865.html Are you happyThat seems to be the question being asked in recent times from boardrooms to bars international conference centers to offices of government leaders business schools to book stores. Are we happy Following our bliss Living our passion Are we mefocused or othersfocused The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan even measures its country39s prosperity by its gross national hap http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Santa-Teresa/blog-785768.html La semana anterior la directora general de la Organizacin de las Naciones Unidas para la Educacin la Ciencia y la Cultura Unesco Irina Bokova vino de visita al pas. El motivo de su viaje fue conocer de primera mano las famosas esferas precolombinas de Diqus candidatas a convertirse en Patrimonio de la Humanidad.De tal manera la dignataria vio en persona estas estatuas monumentales http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/Puntarenas/Osa-Peninsula/Puerto-Jimenez/blog-785423.html Connecting poverty eradication and environmental sustainability is the make or break for the world39s future according to the United Nations Development Program UNDP. In this realm small countries such as Costa Ricacan rise to be world leaders.Small countries can pick up new ideas for sustainable development more quickly than large countries. Costa Rica is a good example of the path to b http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/blog-785302.html