Guanacaste
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Guanacaste is one of Costa Ricas 7 provinces.
Located North-west in the country bordering Nicaragua in the North and the provinces og Alajuela (east) and Puntarenas (south).
In the west the Pacific ocean.
Liberia is The Province capital.
The original name of the Guanacastes province, in the Nahuatl language, is Quauhnacaztlan.
It is put together from three words, Quauh - tree, Nacaz - ear and tlan - place.
The Guanacaste tree is the national tree of Costa Rica and it was declared so August 31, 1959.
The province and the tree shares name due to its very high occurrance of the trees here.
The tree is litterally called the ear tree in english since that is the meaning of the word Guanacaste as explained over. The fruits it produces looks like small ears.
Contents |
Guanacaste Couchsurfing GROUP
http://www.couchsurfing.com/group.html?gid=4987
City Life
The most know city of Guanacaste is of course the capital, Liberia. That does not mean that you should not consider visiting other cities in Guanacaste. There are many gorgeous places to see and many fantastic people to meet in cities like: La Cruz, Coco, Tamarindo, Nosara, Cañas, Tilarán, Santa Cruz, Filadelfia amongst others.
Nature
Some fantastic national parks, wildlife refugees, Beaches and Volcanoes are located in Guanacaste
National parks in the region
Rincón de la Vieja Volcano national park
Santa Rosa National Park
Guanacaste National Park
...was created in 1989 to connect Santa Rosa National Park with the high elevation cloud forest of Orosi and Cacao volcanoes and across the continental divide to the Caribbean rainforest of Northern Costa Rica. The hope is that together these two parks protect enough land to ensure sufficiently large habitats for wide-ranging species such as jaguars and mountain lions, while simultaneously creating a biological corridor for birds and insects to make local seasonal migrations between the dry forest and the evergreen cloud and rain forests.
Palo Verde National Park
...has a uniquely dichotomous character. It’s simultaneously a spectacular wetlands and one of the best examples of tropical dry forests remaining anywhere in the world. This dual nature is a result of the Río Tempisque flooding over land located in a relatively arid climate region.
Barra Honda Caverns National Park
The area of the Tempisque Basin where the Nicoya Peninsula joins the mainland has a foundation of relatively soft limestone. Water has cut extensive caves through Cerro Barra Honda and the other small mountains creating the best know feature of this National Park. However, the park also has well maintained hiking trails. The protected tropical dry forest (though mostly secondary) within its borders is some of the last in the world, and very different from the rain and cloud forests that attract many ecological tourists to Costa Rica.
Carara National Park
This is the northernmost Pacific coastal rainforest remaining intact in Costa Rica, and is the beginning of the transition zone into the tropical dry forests of the northwest. Carara is one of Costa Rica's most popular National Parks, in large part due to its proximity to San José.
Biological reserves
Lomas de Barbudal Biological Reserve
is the place where almost a quarter of the world’s bee species can be found in Lomas Barbudal (Bearded Hills) Biological Reserve.
Palo Verde/Lomas Barbudal "La Mula" Corridor
Volcanoes
Miravalles
Rincon de la vieja
Arenal (shared with Puntarenas/Alajuela)
Beaches
Liberia is a gateway to some of the most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica.
