La Amistad International Park

This is Costa Rica's largest, most remote, and least known parks. Its vast upland wilderness hugs the southern part of the continental divide. Costa Rica has about half of the park, the other half being in Panama, and it represents one of the first attempts to create and manage an international protected area. In 1983, Talamanca Range-La Amistad Reserves / La Amistad National Park was declared by the UNESCO as a Natural Heritage Site of Humanity.

The elevation within the confines of the park ranges from 200 to 3,549 meters. Temperatures range from extremely warm in the lowlands to quite cold in the highlands, and this range of altitude and temperature makes for a very rich diversity of life zones and, consequently, of species.

There is an astonishing number of habitats within this vast wilderness area as a result of differences in altitude, soil, climate and topography. They include paramos, swamp, oak forest, madrono forest, fern groves, high mixed forest and very moist evergreen forest.

There's an extraordinary array of wildlife, and identification has been made of 1748 species in angiosperms, gymnosperms, ferns and mosses; 136 species of mammals; 44 species of amphibians and 29 species of reptiles; about 450 birds, alongside 130 different species of orchids. The most common animals are the tapir, jaguars, ocelots, peccaries, otters, porcupine, skunks, giant anteater and salamanders.