Alajuela

A road runs 42 kms between Upala - Colonia - Puntarenas - Caño Negro and connects the site with the rest of the country.

Caño Negro is an area of lowlands that are seasonnally flooded forming lakes, marshes and holillo groves, which provide shelter for very varied fauna, especially birds. Life revolves around Lake Caño Negro, fed by the River Frío, which flows down from the mountains to the north of the Arenal Lake basin. With the arrival of the dry season, from the beginning of February to April, the area is reduced to little lagoons, channels, ditches and strips of beach inhabited by cattle egrets, wood storks, roseate spoonbills, white ibis, American anhingas, black bellied tree ducks and Neopropic cormorants and is also the only region with permanent colonies of Nicaraguan grackle, an endemic bird of Lake Nicaragua.

The forests, graslands and marshes provide shelter for cougars, tapirs, jaguars and ocelots - all endangered species - as well as tayras, two toed sloths, otters and howler, white face capuchin and spider monkeys. The rivers abound with tortoises, caymans and some 30 species of freshwater fish, including the gar which is considered to be a living fossil.

Caño Negro extends over 10,000 hectares of very hot and humid terrain on the Guatusos plain, north of Alajuela Province.