Nov
07
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Central Valley The capital of the province of Heredia is the singular and small city of Heredia that is located 10 kilometers from San Jose in the foothills of the extinct Barva Volcano. Heredia is one of the most historic sites in Costa Rica and was founded in 1705. Its nickname “City of Flowers” is due to the large number of beautiful gardens and flora and fauna that are here. Located in the central part of Costa Rica among large coffee plantations and a lush green, Heredia is the ideal place to enjoy and relax with the family during the holidays.
Heredia is a place to relax and to rest; the biggest attraction is its splendid colonial architecture that is seen throughout the town. At the heart of the city and around the main square, a popular site for the people of the city, is the historic and majestic church of the Immaculate Conception of Heredia. Built in 1796 with bells imported from Cuzco, Peru, and its stained glass color is one of the oldest in the country. This church is located in the Central Park in Heredia, and has a variety of shops and restaurants around it.
You can also find in the Central Park of Heredia a temple dedicated to music and El Fortin, a magnificent colonial tower that was part of a Spanish stronghold. Next to some old buildings the park is home to The House of Culture which has historical exhibits of art.
Another reason why the city of Heredia is popular is that the Universidad Nacional is located here and has the principal veterinary colleges in Central America, as well as an outstanding department of biology. For that reason is easy to find many students throughout the city.
When you go to Heredia you need to climb to the top of Monte de la Cruz from where you will have the pleasure to see a spectacular view of the city, its surroundings and a large coffee plantation. From Heredia you will also have the opportunity to see in the distance the Poas and Barva volcanoes.
Being the perfect place to expend a holiday, Heredia is a great place to visit as it has a warm temperature throughout the year. With its proximity to San Jose you can enjoy a great vacation away from the crowds that usually fill the big cities.
Reaching Heredia is very easy, all you have to do is catch a flight to the airport in San Jose and from there take a bus or a car and drive 15 minutes to the city of Heredia. Beside the many wonderful cuisines of the many restaurants that are available in Heredia is easy to find enough hotels and lodgings throughout the city.
Nov
04
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Central Valley,
North Pacific,
South Pacific La Cruz is an important part of the province of Guanacaste. It is a beautiful area with typical landscapes of the north pacific of Costa Rica. Near La Cruz there are multiple points of tourist interest such as beautiful beaches and national parks.
La Cruz is the tenth region of Guanacaste, constituted as such since 1969. Approximately 70% of its economically active population works in animal husbandry, agriculture, fisheries and tourism. Its high economic development is due to the opening of the Inter American Highway and the arrival of tourist attracted to the beauty of the area.
The southeast limit of La Cruz, is made up of the dividing line of the Cordillera de Guanacaste, where there are located the Orosi Volcano, Rincon de La Vieja Volcano Miravalles Volcano and the Arenal Volcano. La Cruz has a complete supply of public and private services, especially in the area of health and education.
The town of La Cruz in Guanacaste - Costa Rica
This border region, it is located on the limits of what is known as Mirador La Cruz, from where the tourists can see beautiful and stunning sunsets, with the sun hiding in the Pacific Ocean, under the breadth of the horizon.
This beautiful landscape and the Santa Rosa National Park are their greatest tourist attractions, where the Casona de Santa Rosa, preserved since mid-nineteenth century, is a monument to the country’s history. The park protects a wide variety of flora and fauna of the tropical dry forest making it extremely attractive for ecotourism.
The beaches at La Cruz are wonderful and are quite known to the local and external tourism and overseas. The best known beaches near La Cruz are: Cuajiniquil, Bahia Salinas and Manzanillo. In this region is located also the biological reserve Isla Bolaños.
The development of tourism with the rest of the region has helped generously to the population of La Cruz, as many are working occupations related to tourism and others have turned their homes into small hotels and restaurants. The arrival of tourists (domestic and foreign) to the beaches of this region has been growing steadily, generating demand for luxury hotels and houses that have been developed across the coastal zone. This has caused a significant increase in the prices of real estate
Nov
02
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Central Pacific Manuel Antonio is one of the most beautiful and expensive areas of Costa Rica for real estate and tourism. It is also one of the main tourism spot in the country famous for local and international tourists. It is a destiny almost mandatory for the international visitor. Despite of that the tourist can find cheap hotels and cabins. It is located in the Pacific coast of Costa Rica next to the town of Quepos. Manuel Antonio began as a small town that had a nice national park next door. As the national park became more known, hotels began to open. Because the town of Manuel Antonio is not very wide, the hotels and other buildings began to build on the road to Manuel Antonio National Park, and many of them took advantage of the panoramic views that this place offers. Soon, exclusive and expensive hotels were built to reach the current status of Manuel Antonio. Despite this, you can find cheap hotels but most of them are located next to the beach. The most expensive hotels and condos are located in areas of high hills that are more elegant and a little bit cooler.
If you want to go to Manuel Antonio first at all you need to go to Quepos that is located 4-5 hours to San Jose. In Quepos you can take a bus (run every 30 minutes) that travel to Manuel Antonio directly or rising from the town to the hills, but this can be difficult and heated because of the hot and sunny weather of the sun.
Manuel Antonio National Park in Costa Rica
Among the variety of diversions for tourists that are offered in Manuel Antonio the visitor can do sport fishing (very famous around the world), canopy tours inside the jungle, horseback riding on the beach or trails, hiking through the rainforest and the sea kayaking among others.
Manuel Antonio National Park is small natural reserve, with only 682 hectares. But it contains anything that attracts tourists to Costa Rica: beautiful and luxury beaches, a magnificent landscape with islands near the coast, a lush rain forest with a network of interesting roads easy to walk and lots of wildlife. There are excellent chances of seeing monkeys (aulladores, cariblancos and even titi monkeys), sloth bears and coatis. The red macaws fly through there but often you need some luck to see them.
Despite being small, the Manuel Antonio National Park is one of the most popular parks in the country, receiving about 150,000 visitors annually in recent years. A few years ago the deluge of visitors threatened to ruin the same resource that these visitors came to enjoy. The park’s director in those years believes the park can tolerate no more than 300 visitors per day. In 1994, the Park Service began limiting the numbers of visitors to 600 per day (800 on Saturdays and Sundays), and the park is now closed on Mondays.
Oct
30
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North Pacific The beautiful and famous Playa Grande is an important part of Las Baulas National Marine Park, with its pristine coastline and clear blue sea is one of the best beaches on the coast of Guanacaste. Located in the northern region of the Nicoya Peninsula in the province of Guanacaste, Playa Grande is home to the Sea Turtle Baula that is in danger and that comes every year to lay their eggs on the beach.
Playa Grande was incorporated within the national park in the 90s and is open to the public only during the day when the sea turtle arrives to lay their eggs. During the night police patrol the park to secure ant to protect the turtles and their eggs, especially from hunters and tourists too excited and that constitute a threat of the eggs of the giant turtles that are considered aphrodisiacs and a real delight for many people. The season of incubation of the turtles is from October to May and definitely is an interesting to look. If you are in this area around this time, you have to go to this place because you will see thousands of turtles arriving in the dark to lay their eggs on the beach.
Another popular reason to visit Playa Grande is because there are excellent conditions for surfing, which are on the main beach. Playa Grande is a more calm beach than for example Playa Tamarindo, because it has small and gentle waves, despite of that the surfing is equally good. In fact, according to many surfers the surf breaks and the waves are sufficiently robust to qualify among the best points of surfing in the country. The north part of the beach is great for swimming if you’re not a fan of surfing.
Because this beach is part of a protected area, no hotel has rooms overlooking the beach, however, there are close to Playa Grande a good number of hotels that are quite economic. By law is not allowed get around the beach at night especially during the nesting season and is also not allowed any kind of light on the beach. The reason is because the light scares turtles. There is only one hotel nears the beach is that which was built prior to the establishment of the National Marine Park Las Baulas. In fact the owner of this hotel had a very important role in the creation of the park. Playa Grande is a wonderful place to enjoy the wonderful beauty of nature. The tourist also can rent equipment as surfboards, kayaks and snorkeling horses.
Possibly the only problem with Playa Grande is that it is not easy access to the beach. Tamarindo is the nearest beach and it is located a couple of miles from Playa Grande. Because there is no direct way to get to Playa Grande, the visitor has to cross the statuary between Playa Grande and Playa Tamarindo. The shortest way to get there is to fly to Liberia International Airport and from there travel to the beach.
Oct
29
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North Pacific While Tamarindo may be one of the most developed beaches on the coastline of Guanacaste in the fields of tourism and real estate, Playa Flamingo is considered by many inside and outside the country as one of the most beautiful beaches of Costa Rica. Flamingo Beach is located at Punta Salinas, northwest of Brasilito Bay, 75 kilometers southwest of Liberia. It is located between the beaches of Potrero and Brasilito. Flamingo Beach is basically the sea floor between Acapulco and Panama on the Pacific coast.
With its beautiful white sand, practically virgin beach intact and pristine clear blue water, Playa Flamingo is ideal for an unforgettable vacation. It offers the visitor one of the best deep sea fishing in the world. Away from the coast and throughout the year the tourist can find different kind of fishes, for example marlin, tuna, swordfish and others, marking this beach as a very popular tourist destination. Every year this beach is a fantastic host of international sailfish tournament sponsored by the Amateur Fishermen’s Club Costa Rica.
In addition to fishing deep waters, Flamingo Beach also offers healthy aquatic sports as well as its proximity to the amazing natural reserves of Santa Rosa and Palo Verde. For golf enthusiasts, is also a golf course of 18 holes, designed by the famous Robert Trent Jones Jr.
Throughout the year the tourist can enjoy activities such as scuba diving, providing tourists with the excitement of swimming next to the local marine fauna such as sharks for example. The adventurous tourist can see the impressive array of beautiful tropical fish and large marine life. Also the tourist can enjoy of interesting expeditions and tours to the nearby island of Plata for fishing and diving.
Playa Flamingo has the hotels, condos and private homes most expensive of the area. It is also the ideal spot for a holiday if you want to take advantage of one of the best sport fishing in the world or if you simply prefer to make a cruise during the evening. The best time to come is from December to April, when the beaches are bathed in sunshine and the average temperature is around the 27.7 Celsius degrees. Despite its features, Playa Flamingo is not full of houses, condominium or big hotels which make it attractive for tourists who prefer to enjoy holidays.
Oct
24
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North Pacific Tamarindo is one of the most desirable beaches by both the local and international tourism. Is located on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, more exactly on the Nicoya peninsula, which belongs to the province of Guanacaste. In terms of access, can be done by road and by air as it has a small airport. The trip from San Jose road takes almost 5 hours while the flight time is about 50 minutes. Tamarindo is located near other attractions such as beaches of Playa Langosta, Playa Grande and Playa Avellana among others.
Tamarindo has a typical tropical climate of the Pacific, warm and dry in the dry season and slightly more humid in the rainy season, with lush vegetation since it is part of Tamarindo Wildlife Refuge which serves as a spawn site for sea turtles. For this purpose is complemented by the National Park Las Baulas, created for the protection of spawning sites of the Baula turtle. The area also has mangroves and a variety of birds which contributes to increase the tourist attraction of the area.
As for the tourist part, Tamarindo has hotels of all types, plus cabins, camping areas and cabins which enabled the tourists with accommodations that suit all tastes and budgets.
As for its attractions, Tamarindo offers vast opportunities, tourists can go fishing, visit the wildlife refuges, horseback riding, surfing, diving, kayaking or simply swim in a beach of white sand and blue water.
Sunset in Tamarindo Costa Rica
Despite having a population of barely 2,000 people, Tamarindo is highly developed thanks to tourism, offering supermarkets, shops, cafes, restaurants, nightclubs, casinos and even art galleries. Due to these facilities, the area attracts tourism throughout the year for which has become one of the main points of attraction of Guanacaste.
The variety of bars, cafes and casinos offer a simple but sophisticated nightlife that includes live concerts even as could be enjoyed in larger cities like San Jose. If you are looking for something more indigenous, you can also enjoy the holidays typical celebrations that from town to town which are an interesting attraction for tourists looking for something more than the typical bars.
On the situation of real estate in the area, for several years the land value has increased enormously arriving at exorbitant prices because the area is one of the main targets of investment in Guanacaste. But with the current financial crisis is expected that investment in the property sector will be reduced from this year. For example, a house with three bedrooms that until recently was sold at 650,000 U.S. dollars, now is available at 490,000 U.S. dollars which indicates the extent to which this sector to decline.