Costa Rica is an exciting place to visit. There are many unique opportunities for the potential visitor. There is adventure,
ecological, and educational opportunities. Costa Rica is a top vacation and retirement destination and if you think otherwise
you are in the minority. Costa Rica is only about a 2.5 hour flight from Miami. It is in Central America between Nicaragua
to the north and Panama to the south.For its size Costa Rica is one of the most physically diverse countries imaginable. Local
newspaper advertisements announce houses for sale just 15 minutes outside San José and boast their great climate. It is true
within just a few miles the topography, vegetation, and temperature can go from rolling hills with the cool mountain air to very warm.
Costa
Rica offers it all. In just about an hour and a half one can travel from the mountains over looking San José to some great beaches.
From all over the world people are moving to the San José mountains in order obtain clean living and cool air.
Costa Rica is
also a great place to retire to or take an early retirement. The diversity of Costa Rica allows for great retirement possibilities.
Culture, fine dining, a well diverse and educated population speaking numerous languages, movies, shopping, and an economy which is
growing by leaps and bounds. Did I mention democracy, a stable government, and now a stabilized currency system.
Costa
Rica is a place that has it all. Horseback, everything to do upon and with mountains, beaches, 4 wheeling, rainforest excursions,
canopy tours, water falls, bird watching, orchid watching, rappelling, etc. The fun never ends and it is impossible not to stay
busy with something. Coming from the concrete jungle, the real jungle is an eye opener. In Costa Rica you can end up living
on the beach, spending the majority of the day with your family, living simple and happy, using the term “pura vida” every third word,
and all without having conquered Wall Street.
One of the country’s most distinctive features is its volcanoes, seven of them
active, which straddle the meeting place of two tectonic plates along the Pacific Rim of Fire. These also cause frequent earth
tremors, occasional quakes, and have helped to build the three mountain ranges that run through the country. Costa Rica’s spine
is the continental divide, rising to 3,820 meters (12,533 feet) at Mount Chirripó in the Talamanca range, the second highest peak
in Central America.
On mountaintops vegetation is limited to elfin cloud forest and stunted páramo (Alpine moorland) shrubs.
The temperature can drop to freezing at night in the highest villages.
At the other extreme, in the northwestern province of
Guanacaste, the land is arid and the climate very hot, with temperatures rising above 35°C (95°F). Guanacaste's deforested but
beautiful plains are home to huge cattle ranches, and are dotted with shady Guanacaste trees, shaped like giant mushrooms. The
remaining natural forest is deciduous, the trees losing their leaves in the summer heat.
In between the two extremes lies the
Meseta Central, the central highland plateau which is now home to well over half the country's population in the urban sprawl of San
José and its surrounding towns. This is the traditional coffee growing area, and the climate is mild because of the altitude.
San José is 1,150 meters (3,773 feet) above sea level and the temperature seldom goes above 26°C (79°F)
Church in La Fortuna, Costa Rica with Arenal Volcano in the clouds in the background