Guanacaste

The headquarters are located 19 kms from Bagaces along the Interamerican Highway from Liberia as far as a place called Pijije. At this point turn left a road along the river Cabuyo leads to the administration building.

This wildernesss of 2279 hectares protects 240 species of trees 130 species of birds, 250 species of social and solitary bees, and an infinite number of moth and butterflies.

The Barbudal Lomas are ignimbritic plateaux which end in rocky cliffs that climb to 125 mts. above the tectonic basin of the river Tempisque. These plateaux strech from La Cruz to Bagaces and were originally formed along vents that appeared at the base of the volcanoes of the Guanacaste Mountain Range about one million years ago. Ignimbrite is a kind of acid rock, clear porous and with low density. Four natural habitats have evolved over this stony terrain as well as over the alluvial deposits: deciduous forests, gallery forests, riparian forests and savannah woodland.

Lomas Barbudal appears like a green island in the deforested Guanacaste Province, protecting important headwaters and rivers that, like the Cabuyo, flow all year long, a somewhat unusual characteristic in these dry lands. The riverbanks and the forests provide shelter for collared peccaries, white-nosed coatis, howler and white faced monkeys, and jaguarundies, as well as rattlesnakes, grass snakes, dark bloched vipers, boa constrictors and coral snakes. Birdlife is represented, among other species, by the curasssow, the white fronted amazon, the king vulture, the lineated woodpecker, the magpie jay, the keel-billed toucan, the striped owl and several waterfowl such as wood storks, black-bellied tree ducks and snowy egrets.