This page is a sequel to Saturday's
Costa Rica Classroom?. The reason a visitor told us to consider cooperation with the Country Day School in Guanacaste, Costa Rica is that they're equally passionate about experiential education, and they're offering programs to prove it. Of course, if you're going to school a few kilometers from Tamarindo and Playa Negra--which were featured in Bruce Brown's 1966 cult film
The Endless Summer, you don't need a program to enjoy the finest surfing. It's things like marine studies--sailing aboard a 52-foot Nautor-Swan knock-off that you need to sign up for.
For a real thrill ride, when the dry winter winds blow down from Lake Nicaragua, spend an afternoon on a 42-foot catamaran.
Equestrians ride at paddocks one mile down a pot-hole riddled road.
The school runs extended excursions to the active Rincon volcano. The Reef To Rainforest program is in conjunction with the Organization of Tropical Studies, a consortium of 67 colleges under the leadership of Duke University. Reef studies and PADI certification programs are taken seriously by these divers.
Perhaps most remarkable is field study at Palo Verde, a wildlife management preserve of unequalled biodiversity and significance to virtually all North American migratory birds.
