"The South is up"

By Franco Cartín Brenes

There is a geographic point of view that “the South is below”...but after you have visited the South Pacific of Costa Rica, you will say, like we do that “the South is up”.

“La zona Sur”, like the Costaricans name loving this wide area southeast of the “Cerro de la Muerte” (Mountain of Death), began to develop a lot of touristical attractions and an enormous range of activities. The southern zone, traditionally agricultural for more than 200 years, searched for reinvest in the own area, its people and traditions. Today, it offers for visitors places full of culture, wild fauna, beaches, forests, deserts, colors, unique pleasures and more in the rest national territories.

The South is the South, there are no two

For the 80th, the habitants of this zone started to search for one particular form for their tourism development. To have such a history like other areas in the country, that have been “summer residences” for years, the southern zone banked on having an resolute ecotourism completed with the nature of its people and harmonizing with its environment. Here, visitors are able to see Wales up to country’s valleys of the most high. When we say “is up” this may sound risk and overbearing, still for everyone that has been in this zone the last years it would be easy to confirm that “the South is up”...

In adventure and holiday tourism

The rich rivers and tall trees, present in the zone offer the platform to plunge into emptiness from one canopy of 656 feets or more, over the forest. With the sea around, the island “Caño” qualified this place for the international press to be the best area for diving...What about a little underwater adventure?, or better, down the turbulent water in a rubber dinghy, between rocks and the clean water of the river “Rio General” or “General Viejo”, and to scream while let out all stress.

But after an effective adventure therapy, the Southern zone offer a great variety of city hotels, with all luxury and comfort you need, mountain hostels, with surprising views and cool rooms near its beaches, to spend hours in sea watching or to be lulled into sleep by a breeze, between trees till waking up by the chat of any exotic bird on the window frame.

In the national parks; unsurpassable

The Southern zone includes the highest quality of country’s parks and reserves in territories and diversity. From the high areas of the “Cerro de la Muerte”, where they created the park “Tapantí” likewise private reserves, ideal for watching big birds, we pass the “Macizo del Chirripó”, with 12,526 feet the highest mountain in Costa Rica, with a way up of 72 feet, that challenge the excursion members in its route to the top. The park “Marino Ballena” is the greatest coral reef of the pacific coast in Central America and between December and April the park which is visited by groups of Wales jointly by their families. And in the big mountains of San Vito, the biological station “Las Cruces” (inclusive the famous botanical garden of the Wilson’s) offers one of the greatest botanical collections of Central America. Finally, the national park Corcovado on the peninsula Osa is considered to be one of the most important reserves in America, its virgin rainforests lure millions of tourists, from all over the world, to walk along that ways and to view the fauna.

Up in fishes, Ara’s and “Quetzales”

The forests of the Southern zone are exuberant. They belong to at least 13 different types of vegetation, among them the swamp forests, mangroves, deserts and rain forests, where oak trees reach a size of more than 525 feet, and lend its trunks for millions of indescribable birds and splendid bromeliads. These forests offer homes for millions of species, any of them undiscovered. In the southern areas you can easily observe jaguars, giant ant-eaters, hundreds of peccaries, tapirs everywhere and a great number of birds like “quetzals”, toucans, calabash vessels and other rainforest animals that one is able to see in this transitable parks. And at the coast, tropical fish shoals in brilliant colors wriggle between coral reefs and spring together with dolphins and sperm Wales (cachalots), all you can see with your own eyes.

In mystery, magic and culture

For its rich nature, abundant water, minerals, rare wood and fauna, the South always has been and is a place preferred for human settlement. For centuries and generations, the Costaricans (before they were Costaricans) even developed their culture, arquitecture and traditions in this rich valleys. Among those groups that populated these areas were the “Bruncas” and much more later, proceeding from Panamá, the “Guaymíes ambos”, descendents of the “Lucas”; they brought the native mystery accompanied by the technology of stone working. Their high culture perpetuated traditions like the “Fiesta de los Diablillos” (Little Devils Party). Besides great secrets secure the enorm perfectly round stones and are a mystery, about they say these are signs of Aliens that also today fly over the delta of the river “Sierpe”.

This is a magic place and convergence that Scientifics and believers visit the hole year. The artisan work and textures of these aborigines are very attractive and worth seeing.

In history and people

During the 50th a group courageous Italians, mainly from the south of Italy, forced their way through the mountains, together with the families and settled down; developed a successful coffee plantation that gave the zone a worldwide renown.

Today, in the class rooms the children are learning Italian as second language and on the pavements, the same as between the houses of “San Vito de Coto Brus”, you can listen to one Italian conversation, face to face with one “pasta”, handmade by “mum”.

Farmers, literally, the ancestors of that habitants in the general valley, Buenos Aires and Golfito were countryman/-woman which risked their lives, left behind all central valley’s conveniences and ventured with all their possessions crossing the mountain “La Muerte” in hope of reaching all dreams and a better life.

In sun, sea and beaches

Completely untouched! The best place in the world!... These are some expressions of tourists from all over outspoken for the South Pacific sea side. Yards of uninhabited coast in its natural forms and more, with an infrastructure that conjures up the islands of “Egeo”, frame a dreamlike landscape where crystal water, full of marine fauna stands out against exuberant vegetation that grows at the same sea shore. The coasts, rich for diving and fishing, are places to study many wale and coral species, unique in this hemisphere. In the lagoons that form the roaring waterfalls a bit before they reach the sea, we observe a high quality of water birds, herons and egrets, between quiet crocodiles that seem to be long sleeping rocks.

In mountains, forests and cascades

The wide area around the “Cordillera de Talamanca” offers exceptional views. Inserted into mountain slopes, fauna and vegetation, it varies with every step that is taken up to higher regions. After you left behind the native villages to reach high cascades with fresh water that crashes against the rocks. On one side some tourist rope down, and in one near branch a monkey family is photographed by surprised tourists that cannot stop to marvel all these options, offered by the South... That and many more is why we say: The South is up!