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Maybe you have…maybe you haven’t, heard of Costa Rica. I was born here in this privileged country located in Central America, the thinnest strip of land in the Americas. My country happens to represent a biological bridge between the south and the north of the continent, enclosing in its tiny 54 000 km2 area (the size of the state of Virginia, USA) a huge and diverse variety of flora and fauna. Similarly, its present population derives from an assortment of cultures, including our indigenous ancestors, Spaniards from the colonial period, Africans, Afro-Americans and Chinese from later immigrations, Italian, Polish, Jewish, and the many Nicaraguan, Colombian, European and American newcomers that mesh into our culture.

If you happen to come to us during the summer, it means you’ll enjoy a delicious rain-free climate. You will be able to delight yourself with the million tones of greens, pinks, reds, oranges and purples that melt into the different tones of blues from the sky, always warm because of the strong stinging sun rays. If instead you decide to visit during the winter, rainy season for us, you will enjoy the thousands of gallons of fresh water that pour down onto the land, quenching the thirsty animated colors for up to seven months in the central valley, and up to what seems to be 13 months round in the Caribbean (a typical Costa Rican exaggeration referring to the long rainy season that appears to never end). None the less, this doesn’t mean you won’t be able to enjoy like during the summer, for more rain also means a more lush vegetation, fuller rivers, a fresher weather, cloud and rainbow crowded skies, and a warm strong sun that still manages to crisp your skin, despite the persistent rainfalls that come and go.

Be it summer or winter, when you choose to experience Costa Rica, it will be unique. Each season has its beauty, and each will let you understand better the nature of us ticos who are so fond of our sunny and rainy days, and of our green and wet country that protects about 29% of its forests and jungle through conservational areas and national parks.

All this beauty, combined with the experience of living with a Costa Rican family while attending our public universities, will give you a new perspective of life, lifestyles, ways of thinking, socializing, and proceeding, and about simply being a citizen of the world from another angle.

I disagree with the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, when he says “quien no conoce el bosque chileno, no conoce este planeta”, who didn’t know he was wrong, for I believe that “quien no conoce el bosque tropical de Costa Rica, no conoce el planeta.”