I visited this beautiful country in 2003 on a backpacking trip with my then fiance (now husband). We spent three weeks in this small but impressive country. Costa Rica is blessed in many ways. It has beautiful forests, both cloud forests and tropical rain forests. It has geothermal activity as we discovered in Rincon de la Vieja national park with bubbling mud pools and geysers. It has Caribbean beaches and it has more wildlife than you can poke a stick at. We saw Toucans, sloths, monkeys galore, weird and wonderful frogs, coral snakes, turtles laying eggs, crocodiles and the list goes on. It has volcanoes too. I recall a very wonderful night watching lava bursting out of and streaming down Volcan Arenal. We sat in a thermal bath James Bond style drinking cocktails with the fireworks display in front of us.

Some facts about Costa Rica:
– It abolished the military on 1 December 1948! that’s 65 years ago!
– Costa Rica is home to about 12,119 species of plants, of which 950 are endemic.
one fourth of Costa Rica is under some form of national park protection and 9.3% is protected under the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
– AND it has the most chilled out children I EVER came across in my 1 year backpacking trip. Like seriously laid back, relaxed chilled out ‘Pura Vida’ Style (Pure Life, the national catch phrase, just like G’Day is to Australia). Nothing phased them and I wonder ‘what was it? how do these parents do it?’ I have no answers for that.

Now why am I here gushing about Costa Rica. Well because they want to add another feather to their cap. They have the audacity to want to be the first country in the world to be Carbon Neutral and do you know what, they may very well do it! http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/news/2008/03/080307-costa-rica.html

Here is a short report about how wind is helping on them on this journey. Now how can a small coutnry like Costa Rica just decide – hell let’s stop talking and start doing? whereas most of the rest of the world is still talking and arguing.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/05/201352685625545920.html

I say ‘Salut’ to Costa Rica. You have shown us again how it should be done!