Costa Rica's mountainous topography and copious rainfall are together r
esponsible for one of the best white water river selections in the world. About half a dozen rambunctious rivers are regularly run by experienced rafting outfitters, and those river trips not only provide plenty of excitement, they also pass some gorgeous scenery. Not only do white water enthusiasts flock Costa Rica, including several Olympic kayaking teams, but every year tens of thousands of visitors experience the thrill of rafting for the first time there.

Costa Rica is the perfect place for a first white water rafting experience, since it has several rivers that offer a combination of reasonable rapids and beautiful floats. There are even rivers that are great for family excursions and bird watching, since they lack big rapids and flow through forests full of birds and other animals. In fact almost all river trips offer chances to see a bit of the country's wildlife, such as iguanas, blue morpho butterflies, parrots, otters, king fishers and herons.

The river routes available to rafters range from the turbulent waters of the lower Reventazon, where you hardly have enough time to catch your breath between rapids, to the meandering curves of the Corobici, where you spend more time watching wildlife than paddling. The most popular rafting trips offer a good combination of challenging rapids and calmer stretches where you can sit back and enjoy the passing scenery. WATERFALLS Costa Rica is a waterfall and hot spring lover's nirvana. Take a country roughly the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined, fill it with a half-dozen mountain ranges (including a dozen or so active and sleeping volcanoes), then cover it with 100 to 300 inches (256 to 769 centimeters) of rain per year, and you have the recipe for a waterfall lover's paradise. A walk up almost any mountain stream should eventually lead to at least a small catarata. CANOPY (ZIP LINING) Do you remember the movie MEDICINE MAN, starring Sean Connery, and if you do, do you remember the scene where him and the other scientist (his romantic interest, of course) go flying through the treetops of rainforests hanging from harnesses tied to ropes, well, that is what a canopy tour is all about. Although Canopy tours, a.k.a. zip-line adventures are a relatively new phenomenon, their real origins date back to the 1970's when the rain and cloud forest canopies were the last remaining frontiers of intrepid scientists.According to our research the technique was developed by scientists in the US to study the canopies of trees in forests there without disturbing the life in the limbs and trunk by having to attach ladders or climbing equipment to the tree. Using disciplines common to adventure spots such as rappelling and spelunking, scientists quickly discovered the unique benefits of exploring the junglecanopy from above. Apparently it was not until a few years ago that scientist were able to study the canopy ecosystems in great depth through the use of this technique, and once it was developed, the rainforest became the optimal target for its use due to its large and complex ecosystems. The technique has been successfully used in the Bilogical station La Selva in Costa Rica for this purpose.