Do you know what Costa Rica means in Spanish? It means "rich coast." It is located between Panama and Nicaragua in Central America. Costa Rica is a small country known for coffee and banana plantations, colorful birds and wildlife, as well as a diverse rainforest, mountain and beach countryside.

I am a coffee lover, myself, so I want to pay attention to the coffees of Costa Rica when I go. An excellent review at sweetmarias.com describes Costa Rican coffee as balanced, clean and mild. The review notes that there are some 130,000 large and small coffee farms and that the coffee is typically similar from one farm to another.

Like many Americans, I love bananas, too. I prefer the organic ones. Next to tourism, bananas are apparently Costa Rica's biggest business. Costa Rica has been exporting bananas since the late 1800's. They were not native to the area, but were probably imported from Asia by the Spanish.

Costa Rica has a wide variety of very colorful birds and animal. You can see toucans, parrots and macaws. Cormorants, blue herons and spoonbills live here too. You can also see crocodiles, otters and spider monkeys. That's a lot of variety and there are far too many others to list. Costa Rica is the home of Green Turtle Research Station where attempts are being made to preserve the turtles.

Costa Rica also has several volcanoes. Arenal Volcano is almost a mile high. It is a young volcano, probably less than 3000 years old. It erupted several times between 1968 and 1998. That could be a little too exciting. You can find information on the volcanoes at uscd.edu.

Caravan Tours is offering 10-day all-inclusive packages for $1000. Visit them at caravantures.com The tour includes all of Costa Rica's famous variety. You may also get to visit the local school children when they are in session.

Empowerment International was founded in 1998 to help get the children off the streets of Costa Rica and encourage them to attend public schools. They also provide emergency medical care if the funding is available. Please visit them on the web at empowermentinternational.org and see how you can help.

Costa Rica's rich variety makes it a fabulous vacation spot. No wonder it is a tourist favorite!