DAY    1            DEPARTURE FROM NORTH AMERICA - ARRIVE SAN JOSE
                          (6 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            COFFEE PLANTATION TOUR & SAN JOSE
Costa Ricans call coffee grano de oro, the grain of gold, and with good reason. The humble bean lifted the nation out of obscurity two centuries ago, bringing wealth to countless farmers and to the country as a whole. This morning we will take a Coffee Plantation Tour where we will learn from experienced personnel the origins of coffee-growing, one of the major exports of Costa Rica. This very amusing and informative tour is a multimedia presentation for all ages, using actors to bring to life the coffee production experience. This afternoon 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 will also visit the National Theater. Designed after the Opera House in Paris, it is considered to be Costa Rica's most important architectural landmark. Our afternoon concludes with 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.

DAY    3            GUYABO NATIONAL PARK, CATIE & LANKESTER
                          GARDENS
Our morning begins with a visit to the Guayabo National Monument, one of Costa Rica's only pre-Columbian sites that has been excavated and is open to the public. It preserves a town site that dates from between 1000 BC and 1400 AD. Archaeologists believe that Guayabo might have supported a population of as many as 10,000 people, but there is no clue yet to why the city was eventually abandoned only shortly before the Spanish arrived in the New World. Excavated ruins at Guayabo consist of paved roads, aqueducts, stone bridges, house and temple foundations, gravesites and petroglyphs. Next we visit the Center for Agronomy Research and Development (CATIE), one of the world's foremost facilities for research into tropical agriculture. We will take a guided tour that will highlight CATIE's 2,000 acres, including hundreds of varieties of cacao and thousands of varieties of coffee. The plants here have been collected from all over the world and, in addition to trees used for food and other purposes, there are plants grown strictly for ornamental purposes. 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 return to San Jose for the evening.

DAY    4            BUTTERFLY FARM TOUR & ZOO AVE
Costa Rica features over 1,250 species of butterflies, more than in all of Africa and one in ten of all known species worldwide. This morning we will visit a Butterfly Farm where 30,000 pupae are bred and exported every year to zoos around the world. The offspring of some 60 native species are allowed to flap freely through a lush world secured by netting. During our guided tour we will follow pathways and learn about the complex life cycles of some of the world's most beautiful butterflies. We continue to Zoo Ave where we will view dozens of scarlet macaws, reclusive owls, majestic raptors, several different species of toucans, and a host of brilliantly colored birds from Costa Rica and from around the world. We will enjoy a stroll along the paths where we will get a close look at many birds, large iguana, deer, monkeys, and a 12-ft. long crocodile. Zoo Ave houses only injured, donated, or confiscated animals. We return to San Jose for the evening.

DAY    5            INBIO PARK & LA PAZ WATERFALL GARDENS
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 visit La Paz Waterfall Gardens where we will hike a series of trails through primary and secondary forest alongside the La Paz River, with lookouts over a series of powerful waterfalls, including the namesake La Paz Fall. We will also explore an orchid garden, a hummingbird garden, and a huge Butterfly Garden which some claim is the largest in the world. We return to San Jose for the evening.

DAY    6            GRECIA WORLD OF SNAKES & AERIAL TRAM TOUR
Our morning begins with a visit to the Grecia World of Snakes, a serpentarium with more than 150 snakes, representing more than 50 species. It is located in the picturesque little town of Grecia, renown for its unusual metal church, painted a deep red with white gingerbread trim. We will enjoy lunch in Grecia. 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. 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    7            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.