What readers are saying about The New Key
What travelers are saying about our travel planning consultations
What participants are saying about our tours:
"We just got back from our trip a couple days ago, and I wanted to let
"We had a wonderful trip to Costa Rica. Thank you for sending us to
"We are still partly in Costa Rica, partly at home in our hearts and heads. It was a great tour, truly. I have been on many and this was one of the best. I never knew what a great country this was. And the opportunity to go with you and Ronald made even better." Steve Scholle, May 2004
"What a wonderful experience this was for me. I felt like I got a privileged look at the real Costa Rica and not some touristy packaged tour. All right, I know I'm delusional and this was a tour for tourists, but it felt significantly different - educational and personal and warm and authentic. Thank you so much for doing this good work!" Anna Willman, May 2004
"The experiences I had were somewhat spiritual indeed. You know, I want to do it again!! Well, there are thousand things I want to say, but for now I just want to say Thank you Beatrice!!" Masumi Maeda, May 2004
"I felt such a deep, deep feeling of Costa Rica. Nature, mountains, trees, people, flowers. birds, ants, animals and water. I felt that people in Costa Rica love Costa Rica so much. I wanted to see the rain falling. When I saw such a heavy rain, a heavy rain falling on the lives of wood. I felt things were going round like this. There is an origin of life in Costa Rica. Thank you very much, Beatrice. I could get power inside. I also thank for friends together in this tour and two kind guides.' Junko Koike, May 2004
"When you're traveling with Beatrice, you don't feel like a tourist, you feel like a welcomed guest." E. M., April, 2003
"Thanks so much for including me in this life-altering adventure. I think rural community tourism is a marvelous way to preserve rain forests and feed their caretakers. A model for the world." P.P. April 2003
"Our trip was a way of rediscovering a part of myself that I'd left behind when I grew up." K.W. April 2003
"A profound experience. The day at Yorquín was magic. Everything about the Indian village was amazing. The ride back down the river was a highpoint of my life!" M. H. April 2003
From the Earthroutes newsletter:
FEATURED TRIP: Costa Rica with CONSERVacations
I traveled to only a few of the country’s 39 national parks, reserves, and wildlife refuges, and I did not sample every ecosystem, But I did ride 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; 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 basilicus 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.
GREEN ACTION: Community Tourism
The most awesome part of my recent trip to Costa Rica was a ride in a dugout canoe up the Yorkin River to a village of the indigenous BriBri people, where a short walk led to the thatched-roof Women’s Group Center and beyond, over a suspension footbridge, to a delightful swim in another river. Men of the village poled the canoe and served as guides. Village women served a delicious meal of local vegetables, demonstrated how chocolate is processed from the beans from their organic cacao plantation, and talked about their work and asked about their visitors’ lives in a wonderful effort to make genuine contact.
The fees from this tour go into a fund which helps the community: a sewing machine for a single mother, building materials for a family whose home had burned down, or furnishings for a cottage to house overnight tourists. Food for the visitors’ meals, and time to prepare and serve it, is donated by the group members.
This is community tourism: an organized group of residents working together on a tourist experience that will enrich the visitors’ trip, protect the natural resources and cultural heritage of the area, and provide income for the community. It’s happening mostly in third-world countries, but there are also projects in some urban US neighborhoods. Ask about community tourism at your next planned destination!
NATURE’S WONDERS:
Bioluminescense!
As if all the thrills of the rainforest weren’t enough,
near the end of my Costa Rica trip I discovered that the lodge where I was staying was on a bioluminescent bay! It’s hard to imagine: tiny marine creatures producing light as a chemical reaction, seemingly triggered by friction. Splashes were like fireworks in the water; fish swimming by in the dark were outlined by the light of the creatures they passed. An amazing show!
Contact Earth Routes for reservations at a lodge with a front row seat.