The Rough Guide to Costa Rica (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

In the northwest, the cattle-ranching province of Guanacaste is often called "the home of Costa Rican folklore", and sabanero (cowboy) culture dominates here, with exuberant ragtag rodeos and large cattle haciendas. Limón province, on the Caribbean coast, is the polar opposite to traditional ladino Guanacaste, home to the descendants of the Afro-Caribbeans who came to Costa Rica at the end of the nineteenth century to work on the San José–Limón railroad – their language (Creole English), Protestantism and the West Indian traditions remain relatively intact to this day.
Close to the Pacific coast, Monteverde has become the country’s number-one tourist attraction, pulling in the visitors who flock here to walk trails through some of the last remaining cloudforest in the Americas. Further down the coast is the popular beach of Manuel Antonio, with its picture-postcard ocean setting, plus the equally pretty but far less touristed beaches of Sámara and Nosara on the Nicoya Peninsula.

BIODIVERSITY UNDER PROTECTION
Despite its small size, Costa Rica possesses no less than five percent of the world’s total biodiversity, in part due to its position as a transition zone between North and South America, and also thanks to its complex system of interlocking micro-climates, created by differences in topography and altitude. This biological abundance is now safeguarded by one of the world’s most enlightened and dedicated conservation programmes – about 25 percent of Costa Rica’s land is protected, most of it through the country’s extensive system of national parks.
Costa Rica’s national parks vary from the tropical jungle lowlands of Corcovado to the grassy volcanic uplands of Rincón de la Vieja, an impressive and varied range of terrain which has helped the country become Central America’s prime ecotourism destination. Outside the park system, however, land is assailed by deforestation – ironically, there are now no more significant patches of forest left anywhere in the country except in protected areas.

WHEN TO GO
Although Costa Rica lies between 8° and 11° north of the equator, temperatures, governed by the vastly varying altitudes, are by no means universally high, and can plummet to below freezing at higher altitudes. Local microclimates predominate and make weather unpredictable, though to an extent you can depend upon the two-season rule. From roughly May to mid-November you will have afternoon rains and sunny mornings. The rains are heaviest in September and October and, although they can be fierce, will impede you from travelling only in the more remote areas of the country – the Nicoya Peninsula especially – where dirt roads become impassible to all but the sturdiest 4WDs. In the dry season most areas are just that: dry all day, with occasional blustery northern winds blowing in during January or February and cooling things off. Otherwise you can depend on sunshine and warm temperatures.

In recent years Costa Rica has been booked solid during the peak season, the North American winter months, when bargains are few and far between. The crowds peter out after Easter, but return again to an extent in June and July. During peak times you have to plan well in advance, faxing the hotels of your choice, usually prepaying or at least putting down a deposit by credit card, and arriving armed with faxed confirmations and a set itinerary. Travellers who prefer to play it by ear are much better off coming during the low or rainy season (euphemistically called the "green season"), when many hotels offer discounts. The months of November, April (after Easter) and May are the best times to visit, when the rains have either just started or just died off, and the country is refreshed, green, and relatively untouristed.