About Costa Rica - Spanish Immersion

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About Costa Rica

Costa Rica is one the great countries of Central America. It's an oasis of calm in our hemisphere and an ecotourism heaven, making it one of the best places to experience the tropics with minimal impact. It's also mostly coastline, which means great surfing, beaches galore and a climate built for laziness. In short, it is a fabulous country for visiting and learning Spanish.

Costa Rica's approach to conservation has ensured that lush jungles are home to four types of monkeys (spider, white faced, howler, squirrel), sloths, crocodiles, lizards, poison-dart frogs and a mind-boggling assortment of exotic birds, insects and butterflies. Meanwhile, endangered sea turtles nest on both coasts and cloud forests protect birds and jungle cats. You want to see animals, and you will in Costa Rica. In fact, while the country has only about 0.1% of the world's landmass, it contains 5% of the world's biodiversity. Over 25% of Costa Rica is composed of protected forests and reserves. How about that, nature lovers! One national park that is internationally-renowned among ecologists for its biodiversity and where visitors can expect to see an abundance of wildlife is the Manual Antonio National Park. This park is where many of the photos in this site were taken. Also, Tortuguero National Park (the name Tortuguero can be translated as full of turtles) is home to spider, howler and white-faced Capuchin monkeys, the three-toed sloth, 320 species of birds (including eight species of parrots), a variety of reptiles, but is mostly recognized for the annual nesting of the endangered green turtle and is considered the most important nesting site for this species. You can watch to turtles laying eggs on the beach, just as I did. The Poas Volcano is one of several volcano's in Costa Rica, and visitors can look right down into the crater, as the photos in our Spanish Immersion Video demonstrate.

Finally, the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve in Costa Rica hosts 2,000 plant species including numerous orchids. Over 400 types of birds can be found here, as well as over 100 species of mammals. Costa Rica as a whole has over 800 species of birds. For more information on Costa Rican biodiversity, go to INBIO (Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad).

There are many internet sources to learn about Costa Rica, but come back here-to Spanish Immersion Online-because we will be adding many links.