Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird…it’s a plane…
NO, IT'S A TOURIST!
Story by Bob Schulman.
Up, up and away. Photo courtesy of Turu Ba Ri Park.
Imagine yourself flying through the air head-first like a speeding bullet over a 250-foot-deep gorge in the Costa Rican jungle. The ride lasts about a minute and carries you nearly a mile – dangling from straps hooked to a metal cable – to the far side of the gorge.
Usually, the “Superman” ride is sure to get your adrenaline pumping. If it doesn't, try swinging around “Tarzan” style at the end of a long rope over a crocodile-infested river. Or you can whisk up and down the cliffs like “Spiderman” on a rappelling adventure.
For those not into death-defying fun, there's a few miles of standard zipline rides above the jungle canopy and, for real wusses, hops over the gorge in six-person gondolas.
You'll find all this at Turu Ba Ri Tropical Park, around an hour's ride west from Costa Rica's capital at San Jose in the middle of the country. Spread out over nearly 600 acres, the park also offers miles of forest trails, exotic flower gardens, horseback riding and lots of attractions for the kids such as an iguana zoo and an insect laboratory.
Most visitors to parks like Turu Ba Ri come in groups put together by tour operators in San Jose. (Few who've experienced the capital's notorious traffic jams and seemingly rule-less driving venture away in rental cars unless they absolutely have to.)
Another treat: live volcanoes
Bubble. Bubble... Photo courtesy of Costa Rica Tourist Board.
Among other popular tours from San Jose is a half-hour trip north to the Poas Volcano National Park. A stop at the volcano's rim – said to be the world's second largest in diameter (a mile and a quarter) – offers a view of the bubbling crater that's nothing short of awesome. Also on the Poas agenda is a walk through the famous Doka coffee farm where you'll get a course on coffee growing 101.
While you're there you'll learn how coffee is graded for sale back home. A surprise: The “Breakfast” label doesn't mean the coffee is blended for breakfast; it's just a way of identifying a high-end grade.
A little north and east of Poas is the Sarapiqui area, another Costa Rican hot spot (literally) where you can get immersed in all kinds of things preceded by eco and bio. If it's tropical and it walks, crawls, hops, swims, slithers, paddles or flies, chances are you'll find it living there, either noshing on each other or on 2,000 kinds of plants, shrubs and bushes. Tours of the area visit coffee, sugar cane and macadamia nut plantations and flower farms.
Another five-star tour takes you 85 miles east of the capital to a region called Turrialba. Here, rafters and kayakers enjoy a sort of whitewater heaven while hikers and mountain-bikers ascend the heights of the Turrialba volcano.
Explornatura (www.explornatura.com), a Turrialba tour operator, offers a half-dozen treks around the area ranging from “canyoning” (rappelling cliffs and waterfalls) to shooting the rapids in “duckies” (inflatable kayaks).
Most adventure-seekers stay in hotels in San Jose where day tours can be booked at travel desks in their lobbies. Among top hotels is the five-star, 200-room Aurola Holiday Inn (www.aurola-holidayinn.com), the second tallest building in the city. Its El Mirador dining room on the 17th floor offers a spectacular view of San Jose.
Rooms on the road
Some tours offer stayover options at the destinations, such as at the luxurious Hacienda Tayutic (www.haciendatayutic.com) on a hilltop overlooking the Turrialba Valley. Guests staying in the hotel's half-dozen individually decorated rooms can explore on-site sugar, coffee and macadamia processing mills, an orchid nursery and a 150-year-old restored church often used for weddings.
Tayutic: A spot to tie the knot. Photo by Bob Schulman.
Not yet added to any known tour is a recently opened hotel down the road from Turrialba named Club Mi Amor. Quickly gaining fame for another kind of adventure, it's Costa Rica's first “clothing optional” hotel, catering to nudists and swingers. Mi Amor is owned by Cindy Booker, a Baby Boomer and grandmother from Florida, who says the 25-room property is often packed.
Instead of showing off their stuff on Superman rides and ziplines, guests can do gymnastics on a “stripper pole” in the bar. “The guys have just as much fun (on the pole) as the gals,” Booker told a Costa Rican newspaper.
More info: Check out the Costa Rica Tourism Board's site at http://www.visitcostarica.com.
How to win friends in Costa Rica (or, The legend of Juan Santamaria)
Story and photos by Bob Schulman
Vacationers in Costa Rica may wonder who Juan Santamaria is, or was. His name shows up on roads, statues, billboards, storefronts and in songs. Even the main international airport is named after him.
Any “tico” (as Costa Ricans call themselves) will tell you Santamaria is the country's most popular hero. And you'll find the local folks really appreciate it if you take a little time to bone up on who he was, and what he did.
Usually crowded shopping lanes thin out on Juan Santamaria Day.
Whether you're planning a trip there or not, it's worth knowing the Santamaria story – and how he was drawn into a saga that helped shape the history of Central America. First, let's set the stage:
It's the mid-1800s, and a gold rush in northern California is making headlines around the world. Wannabe miners from the east are traveling to the west by sailing down to Nicaragua, then crossing most of the country on waterways and the last stretch by stagecoach. From there, they catch ships heading up the coast to San Francisco.
Here's where the plot thickens. The cross-Nicaraguan transit system is owned by Wall Street tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, and it's making big bucks. What's more, Vanderbilt hopes to create an even bigger cash cow by building a canal across the country from coast to coast. But all this is threatened by a civil war raging there.
The plot gets even thicker as soldier-of-fortune William Walker hops on stage. In 1855, he invades Nicaragua with a mercenary army – largely financed by Vanderbilt – and seizes control of the country, ending the civil war.
But Walker double-crosses Vanderbilt by handing the transit system over to the mogul's rivals. In retaliation, Vanderbilt prompts neighboring Costa Rica to declare war on Walker, then backs an incursion into Nicaragua by the Costa Rican militia. In the spring of 1856, they take on Walker's forces at Rivas, a key city on the Nicaraguan transit route just north of the Costa Rican border.
The Costa Ricans win, but their victory is short-lived. An outbreak of cholera decimates their ranks, and they go home.
A few months later, Walker wins a rigged election and becomes president of Nicaragua. He runs the country for about a year – during which he re-legalizes slavery (it had been banned in 1824) and changes the nation's official language to English – until a coalition of Central American forces backed by Vanderbilt forces his surrender and return to the U.S.
Walker's last hurrah was in 1860, when he tried to stir things up in Honduras and ended up facing a firing squad.
Historians generally consider Walker's defeat at Rivas as the turning point in his career. It showed he wasn't invincible as some had feared at the time. The battle also showcased the courage of a 24-year-old drummer boy in the Costa Rican militia.
Enter the hero-to-be, Juan Santamaria. A laborer, he'd joined the militia when Costa Rican President Juan Rafael Mora called on the country to take up arms against Walker. His moment of greatness came during the battle of Rivas on April 11, 1856, when his unit was ordered to take a strategically located building held by Walker's mercenaries.
Stepping out from behind cover, Santamaria ran down the street and threw a torch on the building's thatched roof, causing Walker's men to abandon it. Costa Rican forces then captured the town – but not before Santamaria was cut down by an enemy sniper.
Fast forward to modern times, and if you're in Costa Rica any year on April 11, don't be surprised if you find more ticos home at their barbecues than at work. And if most government agencies are shut down. The reason: It's a national holiday in honor of Santamaria.
Youngsters celebrate holidays by putting colorful ribbons in their hair.
And what about Vanderbilt's plans to build a canal across Nicaragua? The canal finally got built some 60 years later, but in Panama. And not by Vanderbilt's company.
