It's smaller than West Virginia, but Costa Rica claims one of the world's most biologically diverse pieces of real estate.
With shorelines on the Caribbean and the Pacific, plus a widely varied terrain in a region fairly close to the equator, it boasts multiple microclimates and thus accommodates a huge variety of plants and animals. (View a slideshow of Nadine's trip to Costa Rica here or by clicking on the photos.)
The destination is well known to travelers for these natural attractions as well as the country's concerted effort to protect this environment for the long term. Nature lovers choose Costa Rica for days of exploration and activities.
The challenge for cruise lines is to offer land excursions that effectively tap into the rich variety, within the confines of a typical day in port.
There are a lot of cruisers to please. Last year, 333,720 cruisers took excursions in Costa Rica, according to the country's tourism board. The excursionists represented 13.2% of the country's international arrivals when counted with the nearly 2.2 million who stayed overnight in Costa Rica last year.
Most traveled to their destinations from Limon or Moin on the Caribbean and from Caldera, Golfito or Puntarenas on the Pacific. Costa Rica ports hosted 252 cruise ships in 2011. The seasons are October to June on the Caribbean and September to May on the Pacific.
On a recent press trip, I sampled a number of typical shore excursions, as follows.
• Cruisers may tour any of several types of plantations, such as banana, coffee or pineapple producers. Options are dictated by ease of access from a port and may be combined with other activities.
We toured a banana plantation and its associated Filadelfia Packing Plant (owned by Del Monte, the spread covered almost 100,000 acres) and learned much about what is perhaps the world's most ubiquitous fruit. Who knew it takes only nine months for one plant to produce a bunch of more than 100 bananas, or "fingers," as they are known in the trade?
We also observed the process of cutting "hands" off the stocks and selecting the perfect hands for export.
We were introduced to other varieties -- the plantain and so-called baby bananas -- separately, at local markets.
• Costa Rica offers abundant opportunities to float on canals or slow-moving rivers for wildlife viewing. Two popular choices for cruisers are the Tortuguero Canals on the Caribbean side and on the Tarcoles River on the Pacific side.
Although not billed as bird-watching tours -- which are offered separately, too, for walkers -- these excursions showed off the country's birds more than anything. Our guide was a birder, besides. These circumstances conspired to let me spot birds I would never know to look for and to discover that birding can be fun.
In addition, the sloths -- really tricky to spot -- were a central attraction on the Tortuguero Canals, whereas crocodiles, sometimes really huge, were the main big-animal attraction on the Tarcoles. After eyeing a few crocs, I was happy enough to stare at macaws while wondering how the water-level egrets, herons and the funny black-necked stilts don't get wiped out by their large, toothy companions in the river.
• Amazingly, there is time for a cruiser to experience a full-blown whitewater rafting experience, or a session of ziplining over the treetops possibly in combination with an aerial tram or a nature walk of some type.
We spent about two hours on the River Reventazon, traveling seven miles on Class I, II and III rapids, in the reverse order. When this is a ship excursion -- a full-day event -- it encompasses an instruction session and a 90-minute rafting trip. It also requires an hour to an hour and 20 minutes to travel between the Caribbean ports and our Rios Tropicales Lodge staging area near Siquirres.
In our case, ziplining was offered at the Rain Forest Adventures' two private parks. One, called the Atlantic Park, is one hour and 45 minutes from the Caribbean ports. It offers 10 rides on cables (two cables for redundancy) and a bonus option of riding the country's longest zipline called the AdrenaLine. It is 2,296 feet long -- and lasts only one minute.
The Pacific park, one hour and 15 minutes from Puntarenas, offers its Tranoply configuration, 10 rides combined with a 30-minute aerial tram.
• The Costa Rica Sloth Rescue Center, 40 minutes from Limon, sees a lot of cruisers because its residents have universal appeal.
The facility cares for injured sloths and eventually releases all that can return to the wild. However, some wouldn't survive in the wild and aren't released.
Visitors, who generally spend two hours here, see a delightful film about the country's two species, the two-toed and the three-toed sloth, and visit several residents. There are opportunities to pet and interact with them, too.
A visit with these gentle creatures is a hard act to follow.