La Amistad International Park

Size: 193,929
Distance from San José: 410 kilometers
Camping: Permitted
Dry season: Almost none

La Amistad extends along the backbone of Costa Rica's Talamanca range, from the eastern boundary of Chirripó National Park all the way to the Panamanian border. There are several points of access into the park, none of them easy.

This is Costa Rica's largest, most remote, and least known park. Its vast upland wilderness, much of which has never been visited except perhaps indigenous people, hugs the southern part of the continental divide. One half of this park belongs to Costa Rica, the other half is in Panama, and it represents one of the first attempts to create and manage an international protected area. The relatively little biological surveying that has been done indicates that this is an incredibly diverse area. At least 400 species of birds are thought to reside here, 263 of amphibians and reptiles, along with 130 species of orchids and more than 500 of trees.

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 species.

The wildlife in here is extremely diverse. With 6 species of felines, and also the most important population of Tapirs of all Costa Rica.

Trees found here: sweet cedar, small cypress, silk cotton, black oak, white oak, dwarf madrono, batamba

Important information about Chirripó National Park and La Amistad International Park:

- These two parks were declared in 1982 a "Biosphere Reserve" by the UNESCO, and in 1983 a "World Heritage Site".

- An estimated has been made that both parks shelter 60% of all vertebrate and invertebrate animals in Costa Rica.