Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Caribbean Coast
Cross the mountains and drop down the eastern slope and you'll reach the elegant line of
the Caribbean coastline - a long, straight 212km along low plains, brackish lagoons and
waterlogged forests. A lack of strong tides allows plants to grow right over the water's
edge along coastal sloughs. Eventually, these create the walls of vegetation along the nar-
row, murky waters that characterize much of the region. As if taking cues from the slow-
paced Caribbean-influenced culture, the rivers that rush out of the central mountains take
on a languid pace here, curving through broad plains toward the sea.
Compared with the smoothly paved roads and popular beaches of the Pacific coast,
much of the land here is still largely inaccessible except by boat or plane.
The Geology
If all this wildly diverse beauty makes Costa Rica feel like the crossroads between vastly
different worlds, that's because it is. Part of the thin strip of land that separates two contin-
ents with hugely divergent wildlife and topographical character and right in the middle of
the world's two largest oceans, it's little wonder that Costa Rica boasts such a colorful col-
lision of climates, landscapes and wildlife.
The country's geological history began when the Cocos Plate, a tectonic plate that lies
below the Pacific, crashed headlong into the Caribbean Plate, which is off the isthmus' east
coast. Since the plates travel about 10cm every year, the collision might seem slow by hu-
man measure, but it was a violent wreck by geological standards, creating the area's sub-
duction zone. The plates continue to collide, with the Cocos Plate pushing the Caribbean
Plate toward the heavens and making the area prone to earthquakes and ongoing volcanic
activity.
Despite all the violence underfoot, these forces have blessed the country with some of
the world's most beautiful and varied tropical landscapes.
