Guanacaste

Along the coast of the Santa Elena Peninsula, in northwestern Guanacaste, following the paved road to Cuajiniquil. The park headquarters are located 43 kms from Liberia on the highway to the northern border.

This park was created to safeguard historical artifacts of battles in 1856, 1919 and 1955 its almost 50,000 hectares of coastline protect 115 mammal species (over half of which are bats), 100 species of amphibians and reptiles, 253 species of birds and over 10,000 species of insects, icluding some 3,200 butterflies and moth. The most attractive mammals are white-tailed dear, the white-nosed coati, howler and white faced capuchin monkeys and collared peccary. Some mammals, such as jaguar, cougar and tapir, are in danger of extinction. The tropical dry forests and mangrove swamps provide a refuge for magpie jays, perhaps the most typical bird in the Guanacaste Province, as well as for elegant trogons, orange fronted parakeets, great curassows and common black-hawks, among other species. Olive ridley, green and leatherback turtles lay their eggs on the beaches of the park.

The Santa Rosa National Park is a mosaik of some 10 different habitats: deciduous forest, oak forest, mangrove swamp, evergreen forest, mesquite-nacascol swamp, strongly deciduous hillside forest, littoral woodland and lightly forested savannah.