Costa Rica Holidays
Some tourists may like to take vacations in the nation of Costa Rica. Some may want to see the culture, history, tourist attractions and society of the nation. Some tourists may want to see the architecture and history of the nation. Many tourists may want to see the beaches, cities or mountains. Some tourists might want to see the landscapes and views. Many tourists may want to get a villa, house, apartment, home, flat, condo, duplex in the nation. Some may want to go and have a vacation in luxury or to have a cheap holiday. Some tourists may require vacations that are fun.
Many tourists may want a vacation in Costa Rica. Some may want to see the culture, history and tourist attractions of the nation. Many want want weekend breaks or longer holidays. Some tourists may want to have vacations that involve ecotourism or entertainment tourism or tourism to see the beaches.
Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east. Costa Rica was the first country in the world to constitutionally abolish its army.
The northwest of the country, the Nicoya Peninsula, was the southernmost point of Nahuatl (named after Nitin) cultural influence when the Spanish conquerors (conquistadores) came in the sixteenth century. The central and southern portions of the country had Chibcha influences. However, the indigenous people have influenced modern Costa Rican culture to a relatively small degree, as most of these died from diseases such as smallpox and mistreatment by the Spaniards.
The first European to reach what is now Costa Rica was Christopher Columbus in 1502. During Spanish Colonial times, the largest city in Central America was Guatemala City. Costa Rica's distance from this hub led to difficulty in establishing trade routes and was one of the reasons that Costa Ricans developed in relative isolation and with little oversight from the Spanish Monarchy ("The Crown"). While this isolation allowed the colony to develop free of intervention by The Crown, it also contributed to its failure to share in the prosperity of the Colonies, making Costa Rica the poorest Spanish Colony in Central America. Costa Rica was described as the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all Americas by a Spanish governor in 1719.
Costa Rica is located on the Central American isthmus, 10° North of the equator and 84° West of the Prime Meridian. It borders both the Caribbean Sea (to the east) and the North Pacific Ocean (to the west), with a total of 1,290 kilometers of coastline.
Costa Rica also borders Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south-southeast. In total, Costa Rica comprises 51,100 square kilometers plus 589.000 square kilometers of territorial waters.
The highest point in the country is Cerro Chirripó, at 3,820 metres, and is the fifth highest peak in Central America. The highest volcano in the country is the Irazú Volcano. The largest lake in Costa Rica is Lake Arenal.
Another contributing factor to this poverty was the lack of indigenous people used as forced labor. While many Spaniards in the other colonies had tribal members working on their land, most of the Costa Rican settlers had to work on their own land themselves. For all these reasons Costa Rica was by and large unappreciated and overlooked by the Crown and left to develop on its own. It is believed that the circumstances during this period led to the formation of many of the idiosyncrasies that Costa Rica has become known for, while at the same time setting the stage for Costa Rica's development as a more egalitarian society than the rest of its neighbors. Costa Rica became a rural democracy with no oppressed mestizo or indigenous class. It was not long before Spanish settlers turned to the hills, where they found rich volcanic soil and a climate that was milder than that of the lowlands.
Costa Rica joined other Central American provinces in 1821 in a joint declaration
of independence from Spain. After a brief time in the Mexican Empire of Agustín
de Iturbide Costa Rica became a state in the Federal Republic of Central America
from 1823 to 1839. In 1824 the capital was moved to San José, but due to
an intense rivalry with Cartago, violence briefly ensued. Although the newly independent
provinces formed a Federation, border disputes broke out among them, adding to
the region's turbulent history and conditions.
Costa Rica's membership in the newly formed Federal Republic of Central America, now free of Spanish rule, was short lived; in 1838, long after the Central American Federation ceased to function in practice, Costa Rica formally withdrew and proclaimed itself sovereign. The distance from Guatemala City to the Central Valley of Costa Rica, where most of the population lived and still lives, was great. The local population had little allegiance to the government in Guatemala City, in part because of the history of isolation during Colonial times. Costa Rica's disinterest in participating as a province in a greater Central American government was one of the deciding factors in the break-up of the fledgling federation into independent states, which still exist today. However, all of the Central American nations still celebrate September 15th as their independence day, which pertains to the independence of Central America from Spain.
Surrounded by deep waters with counter-currents, Cocos Island is admired by scuba divers for its populations of Hammerhead sharks, rays, dolphins and other large marine species. Cocos Island is an island located off the shore of Costa Rica.
Brava (Isla Brava) is an island of Costa Rica.
Isla Del Caño is a small island in the Bahia de Coronado (Bay of Coronado) in Costa Rica. It is on the Pacific Ocean side of Costa Rica, west of the Peninsula de Osa. It has been established as a protected national park, with a permanent ranger station on the island. It is a popular tourist destination, attracting visitors for its beaches, coral beds, and sea life. Researchers currently use the coral beds to study the factors surrounding coral death and recolonization. Marine life includes manta rays, dolphins, sea turtles, whales, and a wide variety of fish. The limited diversity of terrestrial fauna, however, is noticeable, with the island having less than one percent of the insect diversity of the peninsula and an absence of numerous animals native to the nearby mainland. Evidence of pre-Columbian human activity on the island is substantial, with some of the most interesting artifacts being stone spheres evidently carved by early civilizations.
Chira Island is a 3.000 hectare Costa Rican Pacific island located at the upper end of the Gulf of Nicoya, an extensive inlet of sea water that is the result of a geological fault that has caused the land to submerge, leaving exposed only the tops of what were formerly low hills. These are the various islands that dot the gulf, the largest of which being the Island of Chira - Costa Rica's second largest island. The Gulf of Nicoya separates Guanacaste from mainland Costa Rica and is fed by the River Tempisque. Chira Island lies just off San Pablo, Guanacaste.
San Lucas Island is an island located off the Pacific shore of Costa Rica. It constitutes the 11th district of Puntarenas Canton of the province of Puntarenas.
Poás Volcano National Park, in Spanish Parque Nacional Volcán Poás, is a National Park that covers an area of approximately 16,000 acres; the summit is 8,900 feet. One of the attractive features about Poás is that you can get all the way to the edge of the crater. The volcano is located in the Central Volcanic Conservation Area located in the Alajuela Province near the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, which encompasses the area around the Poás Volcano.
Costa Rica holidays
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