Sunset swimmers

Here is the early stage of a sunset, with some people enjoying the surf on the beach.  I took this photo from the balcony/patio of our Playa Langosta condo.  This is not the best time of the sunset, but I like the reflection of the sun on the waves from the horizon to the beach.

At this stage of a sunset, the conversation on our balcony is usually something along the lines of "Do you think we will get a good sunset, or do you think that the sun will drop down behind a marine layer of clouds on the horizon."  The reply is usually something like "While you are up, can you get some more cheese and crackers and refill my wine glass.  This is good Malbec."

Tomorrow I will show the same sunset a little later, with the sun just above the horizon.

Sunset swimmers

Costa Rica Ranked No. 1 "Happiest Nation" in the World

CNN reported a few days ago that a major international study ranked Costa Rica number 1 as the world's happiest nation.  The key factors that caused Costa Rica to achieve this distinction were "Costa Ricans report the highest life satisfaction in the world" and have the second highest life expectancy in the Western hemisphere (behind only Canada).  In addition, Costa Rica rated very high in not consuming more than its fair share of the earth's resources. 

The CNN article noted that Costa Rica is known for its "lush rain forests and pristine beaches."  I therefore decided to illustrate this story by showing a photo of a woman relaxing in the shade with her dog on the beach right behind our condo in Playa Langosta.   No wonder Costa Ricans are so happy.  Does life get much better than this? 

The "Happy Planet Index" developed by the New Economics Foundation in the United Kingdom ranked 143 countries based on (1) what matters to people: long, happy and meaningful lives; and (2) what matters to the planet:  the rate of consumption of the planet's resources.  

The Foundation observed that the slogan and greeting most popular in Costa Rica -- "pura vida," or "pure life" -- embodies the contentment of the population and the strong family and community ties.  The Foundation also noted that clean water and adult literacy are nearly universal, and there is strong political political participation.  Costa Rica was ranked as having one of the lowest rates of poverty in the developing world, even surpassing one member of the European Union.

The Report gave well deserved praise for Costa Rica's compatibility with the planet's needs, commenting that Costa Rica is "Unique in the world for having combined its ministries of energy and the environment back in the 1970's, a staggering 99 per cent of its energy comes from renewable resources."

The Foundation's report complimented Costa Rica for enacting a carbon tax in 1997 and using the revenues to pay for local communities to preserve their forest lands.  That has led to the reversal of deforestation, with twice as much land covered with forests today than 20 years ago.  

I am a citizen of the USA, which ranked 114 (due in large part to its consumption of four times the amount of  energy per person as Costa Rica).  I am therefore not bragging when I report on these results.  I am expressing my admiration for the country and its people, and my appreciation for the example Costa Rica is showing for the world.

Costa Rica Ranked No. 1 "Happiest Nation" in the World

Costa Rican Ox Cart

Finely detailed, hand-painted ox carts are a traditional craft in Costa Rica.  

Historically, the ox carts were used by small family farmers to take their products to market.  For coffee farmers, that could mean a journey of a week or more out of the mountains and down to the port where their coffee beans would be shipped for export.

Can you imagine the parade of ox carts through the towns and villages along the route from farm to sea?  The paint on the ox carts would be a source of pride in a way that is similar to the pride that some people today find in having fancy cars and trucks.

Today's photo concludes my series on Hacienda Guachipelin.  Our one day visit had so many activities (zip lines, tarzan swing, rappelling, rock climbing, lunch, horseback riding, and river tubing) that it yielded 3 weeks worth of varied photos for my Daily Photo blog.  (And, of course, I have many more photos that I did not show.)  Tomorrow, we will return to photos of Tamarindo and the beach.  For the website of Hacienda Guachipelin and more information, please click here. 

Tomorrow I have a post planned about some important news about Costa Rica.  You would not be correct if you guessed that the news is about Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who is serving as a mediator for the political crisis in Honduras.  That is a familiar role for him, as he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role during his previous term as President in the 1980's, when he mediated a peaceful resolution of the conflicts in Nicaragua.   There is some other news about Costa Rica, which I will reveal tomorrow.

Costa Rican Ox Cart

Stables and ox cart

This is the horse corral at Hacienda Guachipelin, with a traditional Costa Rican ox cart.  The horses that I showed yesterday wait in the corral for riders during the day, before returning to their pasture.

Farmers and ranchers take pride in the hand painting on their ox carts.  It is still possible today to see ox carts in use in rural parts of Costa Rica.

Costa Rican farms tend to be smaller family farms than are typical in many other countries, and there are a lot of small family farms that are still a backbone of the economy today.  This is possible because the major crop is coffee, which is grown in small plots rather than large plantations, unlike bananas.  

Much of the central valley areas of Costa Rica are still small farms and villages.  In the dryer northwest province of Guanacaste where Tamarindo is located, there are still small family farms, although large cattle ranches are also common, with some land holdings going back in time to the Spanish land grant days.  

Hacienda Guachipelin is an example of one of those large cattle ranches, although it is today also used for eco-tourism and adventure activities such as what I have shown on this website during the last few weeks.

I will show a closer view of the ox cart tomorrow so that you can better appreciate the fine details of the painting, and will discuss further the culture of the ox carts.

Stables and ox cart

Horses going home

At the end of the day of our zip lining, horseback riding, and river tubing, I noticed that they were taking the horses from the corral back to the pastures.  The horses deserved a rest, and so did we.  

When I posted a photo of Costa Rican cowboys a week or two ago, I received a question in a comment from a reader about whether cowboys in Costa Rica are called gauchos, as hey are in Argentina.  In Costa Rica, a cowboy is called a vaquero.   

The northwest province of Costa Rica, called Guanacaste after the national tree of Costa Rica, has a tradition of cattle ranching and cowboys.  In many small towns in the area, their are are cattle chutes in the town square, which is usually used as a football or soccer field.  In some towns, there is a rodeo ring.  We do not have either of those in Tamarindo because we are abeach resort town that used to be a sleepy fishing village.  In Tamarindo, the only cowboys walk from restaurant to restaurant and sing ballads for tips.

Horses going home

Hacienda Guachipelin Lodge

Here is another view of the guest rooms at Hacienda Guachipelin.  It does not look like a cattle ranch, as it has lush tropical gardens.   I have never stayed in the rooms there, as we always stay in one of our two condos in Tamarindo and my wife and I have each gone there on day trips, but not at the same time.  

My wife went to Hacienda Guachipelin with our friend Sharon (who does Phoenix Daily Photo) and I went there with my two sons.  My wife and I did different activities, however, as she and Sharon hiked to a waterfall and the volcanic fumaroles and did a horseback ride.  She did not do the canyon zip lines or the tubing trip that I have shown during the past several weeks, although she and Sharon did zip lines closer to Tamarindo.

Hacienda Guachipelin is next to Rincon de la Vieja National Park.  Rincon de la Vieja has volcanoes with craters as high as 1,800 m. (6,250 ft), active bubbling volcanic activity, 32 rivers with many waterfalls, and abundant plant and animal life.

Hacienda Guachipelin Lodge

Hammock at Hacienda Guachipelin

After the zip lines, horseback ride and river float trip that I showed recently, this hammock sure looked inviting.  We were not staying at the Hacienda Guachipelin, however, and I am sure this was reserved for guests of the lodge, so we did not rest in the hammock, which is outside the rooms where overnight guests stay.

It is about 90 minutes to drive from Tamarindo to Hacienda Guachipelin.  We arrived about 10:00 am and left about 4:30.  All of the activities that I have shown on this website during the past several weeks occurred during that time on the single day of our visit.  For those people who stay in the guest rooms at Hacienda Guachipelin, there are more activiites, including hikes to waterfalls, exploring Rincon de la Vieja National Park right next to Hacienda Guachipelin, and taking a nap in a hammock, which looked like a mighty inviting "activity" to me after our action-packed day.

Hammock at Hacienda Guachipelin

Surfing wipe out

This is the surfer just as he was beginning to fall.  I took this photo a split second after the two photos yesterday and a split second before the photo of the empty surfboard that I showed the day before yesterday.  As you can see in this photo, the surfer lost his balance and leaned back too far into the wave, catching water that slowed his momentum.  As my July 2 photo showed, the surfboard continued with the forward momentum and had perfect form riding the wave, without a surfer on board.  

Surfing wipe out

Anatomy of a surfing wipe out

After showing yesterday's photo of an empty surfboard, I thought I would show a few earlier photos of the same surfer in the moments before his fall.  In the top photo he seems to be doing fine.  In the second photo, however, he is leaning too far into the wave and is catching extra water that is splashing up and obscuring the view of him.  Tomorrow I will show you what happens next.  

Obviously to get such a rapid sequence of a surfer falling I used the continuous shooting mode on my camera.  I was not hoping to catch a wipe out, of course, as I would wish a long and successful ride for every surfer on every wave.

I took these photos on Langosta beach, just behind our condo.  A person from Texas who rented our condo earlier this month sent me an email after his stay and said he wants to come back if it is not rented for awhile and stay there and work using the internet an the USA phone line while taking advantage of what he called "epic surfing." 

Anatomy of a surfing wipe out

Empty surfboard

Here is an empty surfboard having a nice ride on a wave on Playa Langosta near our condo.  I considered using this photo for yesterday's Daily Photo Theme Day of "empty," but chose the empty crocodile mouth instead.

The surfer in this photo had just fallen down and was hidden in the surf in this photo.  Most surfers use a tether around their ankle to attach themselves to their surfboards, so surfboards like this do not get a long ride.

I don't surf, but I like to watch the surfers from the beach. 

Empty surfboard

Empty Crocodile Mouth

Here is an empty crocodile mouth about to chomp on some food.  The worldwide Daily Photo Theme for July 1 is "empty," so I thought this would be a Costa Rican version of that theme.

I took this photo while on a wildlife boat cruise in Palo Verde National Park.  We saw probably 40 or 50 crocodiles in the wild on that trip, which took about 90 minutes or so.  At one point, the boat operator stopped and held out some chicken parts to feed one of the crocodiles.   

I did not use a telephoto for this photo.  In fact, I had the opposite problem.  In some of my photos the crocodile jumped up right out of the frame where my camera was pointing.  We were safely within a boat that was large enough for about 20 people, but we could have reached out and touched the crocodile if we had been so foolish. 

Needless to say, the river where this photo was taken is in a different area than the river where we were doing the river tubing trip.

Tomorrow I will show the runner up of a photo that I considered for the theme of "empty."  It is completely different.

"Click here to view thumbnails for all participants" in the City Daily Photo Theme Day.

Empty Crocodile Mouth

Man overboard!

My younger son fell out of his tube after going over the large rapids shown in yesterday's photo.  This was not a problem, as he could simply pull himself back up and into the tube using its straps and handles.  

We were already wet from the tubing, so it did not make a difference that Stuart went in the drink with his swimming suit on.  Hacienda Guachipelin supplied us life preservers and helmets, so no harm can come from this little episode.

Fortunately, I had my waterproof camera to record this embarrassing moment of Stuart's.  In the second photo, you can see Stuart give the thumbs up sign to signify all is well.  

Please excuse the quality of these photos, as the camera obviously had water on the lens, and I took the second photo backwards and over my shoulder, so the framing of the shot is off.  Behind Stuart in the second photo is my older son, who is floating down backwards at that moment, and one of the attendants in a blue helmet is visible behind him.

This concludes my series from the tubing portion of our Hacienda Guachipelin Adventure Tour day.

Man overboard!

River rapids and attendants

This odd photo shows large and swift rapids that we did indeed go down in our rafts.  One of the attendants is standing right on the edge of the drop off in order to grab our tubes as we floated by and to stabilize us to prevent our tubes from tipping over.  One of the other attendants is approaching the rapids.

The attendants were amazing.  They were sort of like caddies who help golfers at a nice country club.  They would point our tubes us in the right direction so we would float down the best part of the river, as there was very little we could do to steer the tubes.  In calm stretches of the river, they even kicked and paddled and helped push us along.  

They were present to assist if anyone fell out of their tube or tipped over in the rapids.  The attendant who was standing on the edge of the rapids in the top photo reached out and grabbed my tube as I was about to plunge down the rapids and he stabilized my tube in the right position so I would not flip over, which I would have done had he not been there to help.

The bottom photo posted today was the scene of a little, harmless mishap by my younger son, which I will show tomorrow.

River rapids and attendants

River tubing

Here are some more views of our afternoon float trip.  As these and the previous photo show, the only practical way to go down this river is by floating on a tube, unless you are an expert in a kayak, which we and most tourists are not, of course.  

In the background of the top photo you can see one of the guides.  Unlike us, he is going down the river on his stomach rather than sitting down in the inner tube as we were.  That allows him to steer and, with his hands free, to help us.  The guides kept us pointed in the right direction so that we would not get hung up on any rocks.
In the second photo you see my older son going down one of the rapids.  In both of these photos, I had spun in my tube so I was floating down backwards, which explains why I was able to take a photo looking back up the river.

I selected these photos to try to give an idea of how swift the river is.  From a distance the rapids may not look very big, but while riding in an inner tube going over them, it was quite fun and thrilling.  Tomorrow's photos will be even more extreme.

Comment about the situation in Iran:   Today, June 28, many Daily Photo bloggers are commenting about the situation in Iran.  I would like to join in expressing the wishes of people all over the world that human rights will be respected for all people, including those who observe their right of assembly, without being targeted or repressed by their governments.  International news media and observers of free elections are essential in many areas of the world.  

Websites, including the Daily Photo websites, are an important tool to promote understanding and fellowship among people of different nations.  The expression of views by people on the internet and in the streets of Tehran should be respected and encouraged, not repressed.    One of the City Daily Photo bloggers in Iran, we understand, has been taken in to custody.  His photos of the situation in Iran have been remarkable, and the world joins in expressing its hopes and prayers for his safety.

Democracy and human rights are very important to the people of Costa Rica.  Costa RIca is a beacon of democracy in Central America, a region that has  been troubled and challenged in the past.  Costa Rica abolished its military in 1949 and redirected its military budget to spend the money on health care and education.  It has been a stable democracy ever since, even though many of its neighbors have had military coups and takeovers.  

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants"> among the Daily Photo Bloggers who are commenting upon the situation in Iran.

River tubing

Tubing down the rapids

Our tubing trip down the Rio Negro River was a thrill-packed adventure, as I hope you can appreciate somewhat by today's photos and the photos from the last two days.  

The river flowed quickly, with twists, turns, and drops in elevation, as you can see in the photos today and during the past few days.  

In the second photo today, a blue helmet on the head of a fellow floater is barely visible in the left side of the photo, which shows turbulence of the river.   

I took these photos and the ones I posted during the last few days while floating down the river on a tube, using a waterproof camera.  Please excuse and tolerate the quality of the photos, as I was obviously moving and bouncing at the time, and water was on the lens.

Tubing down the rapids

Tubing on the Rio Negro

Our next activity was tubing.  There were 6 of us tubing, with 3 attendants to guide and help us.  There was also an attendant who took any personal belongings from the horseback ride, such as extra clothes, and drove them to the end of the float trip so people could change into dry clothes at the end of the float.

As you can see in the 2 photos today and the during the past 2 days, this was not a "lazy river" float.  There were lots of rapids during the trip, which was 5 km (3 miles) long and took about an hour.  Some of the rapids were rated as Class III rapids.

The tubes had handles to hold on to, and a seat strapped in the middle to sit on and keep people from sliding down inside the inner tube.

Several people yesterday left comments guessing that the activity I would show today would be rafting.  Those were good guesses, but I think that this river would be too narrow and have too many twists and turns for rafts.

Tubing on the Rio Negro

Rio Negro river

This is a closer view of the Rio Negro.  Two days ago I mentioned that after our horseback ride we had another activity, but I have not yet mentioned what that activity is.  The photos yesterday and today should give you a good hint. 

If you came across a river like this, what would you like to do?  Tomorrow I will show you what we did next in our day at Hacienda Guachipelin.

Rio Negro river

Rio Negro river

At the end of the horseback ride, we found ourselves on the banks of the Rio Negro river.  The forest was lush.  Hacienda Guachipelin is located on the slopes of Rincon de la Vieja volcano, and there are many rivers that run down the slopes of the volcano.  The elevation gain up the slopes of the volcano causes a transition from the Pacific coastal dry forest to the cloud forest at higher elevations.

Rio Negro river

Horseback ride at Hacienda Guachipelin

After lunch, we went to the stables and did a horseback ride through the forest.  The horses were excellent trail horses.  The route was downhill, which made it easier for them.  The horses broke into a mild trot a few times.

There were six riders and three cowboys to escort us.  We were given helmets to wear, both for the horseback ride and for our next activity.

What is the next activity?  Stay tuned.

Excuse me for this shout-out, but I would like to use this occasion to wish happy birthday today to my brother.  He is a clinical psychologist who has helped people his entire professional life.   He and his wife (a social worker) work for the Veterans Administration in Minnesota, primarily evaluating and helping veterans who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.  He has a delightful and talented family.  Each of his two children has travelled to Costa Rica twice.

Horseback ride at Hacienda Guachipelin

Cattle at Hacienda Guachipelin

While we were having lunch, across the road we saw this cow come walking along.  He was followed by a herd of cows and some Costa Rican cowboys, shown in the second photo.

Hacienda Guachipelin is a working cattle ranch in addition to being a eco-lodge, restaurant, and adventure park.  It is 1,600 hectares, or nearly 4,000 acres.  About 1/3rd of the land is used for pastures.  About 20% of the land is being reforested with environmentally threatened trees.  The remainder is being preserved as tropical forests with eco-tourism activities such as hikes to waterfalls.

The Guanacaste region of northwest Costa Rica has a different ecology than the rest of the country.  The weather is sunny and dry for much of the year.  There are not banana plantations.   Instead of the small family farms of coffee that are common in the moist central highlands and valleys, Guanacaste has a tradition of cattle ranches and cowboys.   

Tomorrow, I will show photos of our first activity after lunch.  After watching these cowboys, we decided it was time to saddle up.

Cattle at Hacienda Guachipelin

Lunch at Hacienda Guachipelin

After our exhilarating zip line adventure, we were ready for lunch.  Would this be a fast food lunch?  No, we were ready to sit and relax for a bit to allow our adrenaline to subside to human levels.  

I did not expect, however, that we would find that there was a white table cloth lunch set up at a table that was reserved with my name on it.  The food was a buffet of traditional Costa Rican food, which offered salad and a choice of chicken or other entrees, with rice and beans, and deserts that included local pineapples and other refreshing fresh fruit. 

Tomorrow I will show you part of the view from our lunch table.

Lunch at Hacienda Guachipelin

Zip lining crew

This photo memorializes that my two sons and I safely and happily completed the zip line phase of our Hacienda Guachipelin Adventure Tour, with the four attendants who assisted us and the three young women in our group.  

With the photos I have shown during the past week or so of our zip lining, rappelling, Tarzan swinging, rock climbing, being perched on the side of the slot canyon cliff, more zip lining, and upside down zip lining, it is perhaps easy to overlook that we arrived at Hacienda Guachipelin at 10:00 a.m. and everything I have shown you thus far occurred before lunch.  

Sharon of Phoenix Daily Photo left a comment a few days ago that she surmised that we would be tired after all this activity, but there is much more to come. 

Zip lining crew

Zip lining, upside down

As promised yesterday, here are two photos of people going down the zip lines upside down.  Like most of the other lengths of zip lines at hacienda Guachipelin, this final length of the zip lines crosses the slot canyon yet again.  

The second photo shows that it is not possible to control the direction of your body as you are hanging upside down on the zip lines.  She had the added thrill of traveling through the air, fast, upside down, and backwards, while looking down at the rushing river in the bottom of the slot canyon.  

You can see three of the attendants and the woman's two friends on the destination platform on the other end of the zip line.  

 

As I mentioned yesterday, my younger son, Stuart, did this zip line upside down, but I did not.  Was it foremost on my mind wondering what I would do with my camera that was dangling around my neck if my nearly 60 year old bones were hanging upside down?  Sure, that was it.

Zip lining, upside down

Zip lines upside down

I previously showed the young women who were in our zip lining group going down the zip lines with no hands, one of them rappelled down the canyon upside down, and I described how my wife went down the zip lines in a horizontal "Super-Chica" position.  For the last zip line in our Adventure Tour at Hacienda Guachipelin, the guide asked is if we wanted to zip line upside down.  The three women who were in our group eagerly accepted the challenge, as did my younger son, Stuart, but not I.

Here is a photo of the guide positioning one of the women upside down.  I am sure that your attention was drawn first to the pulley mechanism that is shown in this photo.  You will note that there are riders are attached to the zip lines in two ways.  In addition to the hook hanging from the pulley, there is a safety hook attached around the cable behind the pulley at all times.   The attendants were very careful to make sure that the safety cable was attached whenever we were hooked or unhooked to the pulley.

The three women from New York who were in the same group with us said it would be OK for me to take their photos and post them on this website, but I used my discretion to post a photo that was made somewhat more modest due to the location of the guide's elbow and forearm.

My younger son, Stuart, also did the last zip line upside down.  I think he figured that it would be too much of an insult to his manhood if the women were the only ones to do the trip upside down.  I decided that I am too old for such thrill-seeking, and the regular zip lining position is plenty adventurous for me.  (And of course I had my camera to think about and protect.)

What does it look like to zip across the canyon while suspended upside down?  By now in this series of photos you have probably anticipated my teaser:  the answer will be shown tomorrow.

Zip lines upside down

Zip-lining down the canyon

This is my older son as he set off on the zip lines heading to the second to the last platform.  You can see the platform in the distance.  It has been built into the canyon wall, just below the top of the cliff.  

This photo also shows a perspective of the distance and elevation drop from one platform to the next.  Visible in the bottom of the photo is the Rio Blanco river that carved the slot canyon through which we were zip-lining, rappelling, Tarzan-swinging, and rock climbing, 

 

In this photo you can see my son's right arm positioned on the cable, ready to pull down if he needs to brake.  The friction of the leather glove pulling down on the cable provides the braking.   

You may recall that near the beginning of this photo tour I showed a picture of one of the women who took the tour with us traveling down the zip lines with no hands.  Tomorrow and the following day I will show you something even more extreme.  Fasten your seat belts.

Zip-lining down the canyon

Perched on the edge of a cliff

The next stop on the zip line tour found us walking along the edge of the cliff of the canyon.  Here you see my younger son, Stuart, with one of the guides, on a narrow ledge, with the river down below.  Don't worry, there is still a safety cable that would hold him if he fell.

From this perch on the side of the cliff, each of us swung across the canyon to reach the other side using another Tarzan swing.

Tomorrow I will show you what happened next.

Perched on the edge of a cliff

Zip line platform suspended over canyon

This is a photo of the platform at the end of the zip line shown in yesterday's photo.  What is remarkable about it is that the platform on which to land is suspended in mid air over the canyon, attached only by cables to the two canyon walls.  

If you are worried what might happen if a rider approaches this platform at too high a speed, there is no need to worry.  When riding the zip lines, it is possible to slow down by applying the brakes.  The brakes consist of thick leather gloves on which you can pull down on the cable from which your pulley and cable are hanging.  It is critical, of course, to keep your hand behind the pulley so your pulley does not run over  your hand.

At the Hacienda Guachipelin zip line tour, the platforms have blocks on the wires that catch the incoming riders so it is possible to approach the platforms at a higher speed without braking, and the blocks will stop you automatically.

The automatic brakes are a benefit because it is a mistake on the zip lines to brake to the extent that you stop before reaching the platform.  If you stop too soon, you will have to spin around and reach up to the cable with each and and pull yourself along the wire to the platform.

This photo shows one of my sons as he is about to leave the platform suspended over the canyon and head to the next stop, which I will show tomorrow. 

Zip line platform suspended over canyon

Rock climbing and zip lines

The top photo shows me climbing out of the canyon on the rock climbing wall, while my two sons waited below for their turn.  My prior experience with rock climbing was limited to a couple of trips to an indoor rock climbing wall with my sons about 15 years ago.  This canyon is obviously much taller than an indoor rock climbing wall.   

The top of the rock climb out of the canyon is not the end of the zip line adventure.  We were only about half done.  There were more zip lines to come, criss-crossing  and traversing the canyon.  

The second photo shows my older son taking a zip line from the top of the rock climb towards the next platform, while my younger son is climbing out of the canyon in the background.

Tomorrow I will show you the destination of the zip line shown in this photo.  It is unique.  

Rock climbing and zip lines

Rock climbing

While it was fast and effortless to rappel down into the canyon, we climbed out.  

There were foothold and handholds bolted into the cliff to make it possible to climb out.  We wore our harnesses, and we were attached to cables.  The guides could catch us if we fell, and they could also give a little assist on the climb by use of the cables and pulleys.  

Once we reached the top, do you think that we were done?   Think again.  Then check the photos tomorrow and the days that follow.

News Item:  Costa Rica recently won the World Tourism Organization's 2009 Ulysses Award at the "Innovation in Tourism Education" conference in Madrid, Spain.  Several schools near Tamarindo have implemented the "School Tourism Culture Awareness: Costa Rica Adventure" program developed by the Costa Rican Tourism Institute.  The program teaches elementary school children the importance of sustainable tourism through fun interactive exercises and games.

For a small country like Costa Rica, where tourism is the number one industry, teaching children at a young age the benefits of eco-tourism is important both for future economic development.  Developing special programs for elementary school children has the added benefit of educating their parents when they ask their children "What did you learn in school today?"  

Rock climbing

Tarzan swing

We have already seen how to cross the canyon the top on zip lines, and we have seen how to go from the top of the canyon by rappelling down.

Now, we face the challenge of how to get from one side of the canyon to the other from deep inside the canyon.

The answer: swinging across like Tarzan.

The top photo is my older son swinging across, with my younger son filming him. The bottom photo shows one of the young women who took the trip with us swinging across. I apologize for the lack of focus, but it was a low light situation deep in the canyon, and of course she was moving fast.

The next question we face is how to get from the bottom of the canyon to the top. I will show you tomorrow.

Tarzan swing