Costa Rica Family Adventure

Your visit to the Farmers' Market is a traditional Costa Rican custom. Farmers from all over Costa Rica come to San José to market the most fresh and tasty fruits and vegetables. Papayas, mangos, passion fruit, potatoes, cabbages, and all kinds of herbs and medicinal plants as well as things like honey, cheese, fresh flowers are sold. BRING  YOUR CAMERA!

At the National Institute of Biodiversity's INBioparque experience interactive exhibits, multimedia, audio visuals and interpreted natural trails with permanent live exhibitions of frogs, tarantulas, bee, ants, orchids and butterflies.

A drive through the mountainous Braulio Carrillo National Park and on through the banana plantations of the Atlantic lowlands will bring you to Freeman dock, where you take a covered boat for a two to four hour trip, viewing wildlife along the way, to Tortuga Lodge. Enroute you will enjoy a picnic lunch at the Tortuguero National Park Guard Station.

Birding, Howler monkeys in the forest, guided tours in the Tortuguero Rainforest and canals, a visit to the village of Tortuguero, the garbage recycling plant, the Caribbean Conservation Corporation Museum on Atlantic Green sea turtles, walks on the beach at night to view the turtles nesting, visit and interact with the children of the Tortuguero Public School when in session or the schoolground year round, a lunch at "Miss Juney's", famous for her Caribbean cooking, a soccer match, or an arts and crafts session with Jessie at the local souvenir shop -- all possible activities during the next few days at Tortuguero. During an all day exploration of the canals of  Tortuguero National Park,  go to Palm Canal, where you can enjoy adventure and exercise with canoes, kayaks, and hydro-bikes. You can go where our motorboats cannot and wildlife is most abundant. A last trip into the forest of Tortuguero National Park -  this time to visit Harold's Canal, where bare-throated Tiger herons, snowy egrets, and boat billed herons are known to nest; watch as hundreds of birds come into their rookery's to settle for the evening.

Leaving Tortuga Lodge, take a short Cessna flight back to San José and then on to the Orosi Valley and the put-in on the Rio Pejibaye for a day of white water rafting. There will be plenty of time to swim and ride inner tubes along the way.

TRIP HIGHLIGHTS

• Farmers market

• INBioparque

• Tortuguero National Park

• Nesting of Atlantic Green Sea Turtle

• School visit

• Palm Canal for water activities

• Water birds at Harold's Canal

• White water rafting