DAY    1            DEPARTURE FROM NORTH AMERICA - ARRIVE SAN JOSE
                          (5 NIGHTS)
We will be met at the airport by our tour manager/guide, where we will board our own private coach and transfer to our hotel in San Jose.

DAY    2            SAN JOSE & SARCHI
This morning we will take a guided San Jose City Tour. We will view all of the city's most important sights and landmarks including the University of Costa Rica, the Supreme Court, Democracy Square, the Metropolitan Cathedral, elegant residential homes, and many sights that display the finest in Costa Rican architecture. During our tour we also will visit the National Theater. Designed after the Opera House in Paris, it is considered to be Costa Rica's most important architectural landmark. Our morning will also include a visit to the Museo del Oro, featuring an impressive collection of pre-Columbian golden treasures. Time permitting, we will also visit the Museo Nacional, in the former Bella Vista Military Fortress, which today houses pre-Columbian artifacts along with art, historical items, and natural science exhibits. This afternoon we visit nearby Sarchí, Costa Rica's main artisan town, where we will view the colorfully painted miniature oxcarts, which are made here. Oxcarts such as these were once used to haul coffee beans to market, and they remain a well-known symbol of Costa Rica. In addition to miniature oxcarts, many carved wooden souvenirs are made here with rare hardwoods from the nation's forests. We return to San Jose for the evening.

DAY    3            INBIO PARK & AERIAL TRAM TOUR
This morning we will visit INBio (Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad), run by the National Biodiversity Institute. The Institute is part-museum, part-educational center, part-nature park. We will begin with an Informational Video, followed by a tour of the two large pavilions that explains Costa Rica's biodiversity and natural wonders. Next we will enjoy a Hike on Trails that re-create the ecosystems of a tropical rainforest, a dry forest, and a premontane forest. There is also a good-size butterfly garden, a plexiglass viewing-window into the small lagoon, and a series of wonderful animal sculptures donated by one of Costa Rica's premiere artists, José Sancho. This afternoon we will enjoy an Aerial Tram Tour through one of Costa Rica's most unique eco-tourism and research facilities. The tram takes us on a 90-minute, one-mile-long excursion through the rain forest canopy and reveals details of everyday life in the treetops where 75 percent of all rain forest species dwell. We will come eye-to-eye with monkeys some 200 feet above the forest floor and will view an abundance of plants and animals hidden at the tops of the tall rain forest trees. This afternoon we will return to San Jose.

DAY    4            CARTAGO, LANKESTER GARDENS & THE OROSI VALLEY
Our morning begins with a visit to Cartago, Costa Rica's first city founded in 1563 and a former capital of Costa Rica. We will visit one of Costa Rica's most famous buildings, the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles, which is dedicated to the patron saint of Costa Rica. Within the walls of the Byzantine-style church is a shrine containing the tiny figure of La Negrita (the Black Virgin) where legend has it that La Negrita was revealed on this site to a peasant girl in 1635. Miraculous healing powers have been attributed to La Negrita and, over the years, thousands of pilgrims have come to the shrine seeking cures for their illnesses and difficulties. Next we will visit Lankester Gardens, created in the 1940s by an English naturalist, where no fewer than 800 species of orchids are on display. The University of Costa Rica now administers the gardens, and their primary goal is to preserve the local flora, with an emphasis on orchids and bromeliads. We will walk along Paved Trails that meander from open, sunny gardens into shady forests. In each environment, different species of orchids are in bloom. After time to visit the Information Center, we continue with a tour of the Orosi Valley. Our scenic driving tour will take us into a Shangri-la canyon edged on the south by the dauntingly forested flanks of the Talamanca Mountains. The rivers that drain into the valley have been dammed to form Lago de Cachi, around which the road and our tour will loop. Our tour will be highlighted by Mirador Orosi, offering amazing views over the valley; the village of Orosi, including the charming Iglesia de San Jose de Orosi; the shores of Lago de Cachi, which attracts large numbers of waterfowl; the rough-hewn Casa El Sonador (House of the Dreamer), a wooden and bamboo structure adorned with primitive carvings; the Presa de Cachi (Dam); and Ujurras, renowned for its ruined church, Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de la Limpia Conception, which dates from 1681. We return to San Jose for the evening.

DAY    5            POAS VOLCANO & LA PAZ WATERFALL GARDENS
Our day begins with a visit Poas Volcano National Park, an active volcano whose main crater is more than 1 mile wide and constantly active with fumaroles and hot geysers. Poás is surrounded by dense cloud forests, and we will hike some of the nice gentle trails. This afternoon we visit La Paz Waterfalls Gardens where a series of trails are spread through primary and secondary forest alongside the La Paz River. We will view a huge Butterfly Garden, a Hummingbird Garden, a Serpentarium, and an Orchid Garden before enjoying a scenic forest walk, stopping at the various lookouts over a series of powerful falls, including the namesake La Paz Fall. We will return to San Jose for a Tiquicia Dinner and Show that includes a show of native Costa Rican folklore dances and a buffet of local cuisine.

DAY    6            DEPARTURE FROM SAN JOSE
Our rewarding tour will come to an end as our tour manager/guide accompanies us to the airport for the return flight home.