El Sabor: Taste a la Tica

“El Sabor, el Sabor!” – This friendly shout fills Academia Tica’s patio every school day at noon, when hungry students flock towards the sound of Caribbean music and the wide smile of Don George. He emerges from a van and opens the side door to reveal baskets and coolers brimming with treats, which hungry students have been yearning for throughout the […]

Horsing around

The hand-painted sign showing two bridled horses does not point towards a fancy place. Turning down this stone driveway off the main road through Las Nubes will not deliver you to a state-of-the-art equine training facility. Nor are these lush pastures described in any Lonely Planet guidebooks. Yet, the animals grazing these hills speak volumes about the culture of Costa […]

Las Cataratas – A day trip to the waterfalls

One Friday morning in Jacó Beach: Our group of seven Academia Tica students was being picked up in front of the apartments by Alan, our tour guide for the day. A 45 minutes drive southbound along the coast led us to the beginning of a narrow path through private farmland. First we passed chicken and horses, […]

Un día en la vida: Volunteering at Carara National Park

In the tangle of cacophonous green that is Carara National Park, two types of forest meet, a mix of plants, animals and insects found nowhere else in the world. This convergence of Costa Rica’s dry Northern Pacific region and its much wetter Southern Zone is host to half the known animal species in a country […]