La Marta: Refugio de Vida Silvestre

Wildlife Refuge La Marta is located in the district Pejibaye of the Canton of Jiménez, province of Cartago, at only two hours drive of San José, capital of Costa Rica.

It is located in the mountain Range of Talamanca, among the affluent of the rivers La Marta, Gato and Atirro, and the Reserva of la Biosfera of the Amistad considered by the UNESCO Natural Patrimony of the Humanity. With a surface that surpasses the 1.500 hectares, of eventful topography, its altitude varies between the 750 and the 1,950 meters above sea level. The temperature fluctuates between the 18 and the 27 degrees centigrade. By its temperate-hot climatic conditions and different altitudes the exuberance is explained and the notable biodiversity that possesses.

The geological and water wealth is of great significance. In the interior of the Refuge can be observed a formidable river system with its rivers of crystalline and fresh water, cataracts and thousand-year-old caverns.

The flora and the fauna correspond al rainy tropical forest with influence of the Caribbean and a high relative humidity; combined with the water wealth, the climate, the haste and the historic remainders of what was an agricultural estate of ends of the century ancestor, with coffee production modules, stockbreeding, trapiche, aqueducts, sawmill, bakery and other, they frame a natural landscape of great beauty and extraordinary potential for activities.

Approximately a 40% of the territory corresponds to primary forest and the 60% remainder is covered by secondary forest in different phases of natural regeneration.

In the Refuge abundant landscape and biological resources exist that enjoy themselves with walks by natural paths inside the forest, natural pools of the rivers Cat and The Marta, and the crystalline water of the cataracts that are found along these traveled through.

Also it can camp in stores of campaign located in shelters techados, provided with the basic services of drinking water, grills, tables and sanitary services.

Two types of orchids have been found that –apparently- are not registered in Costa Rica; has been detected, besides, the presence, in some places, of a beautiful butterfly of transparent wings. It is a matter of Ithomia bolivari, species restricted to the low lands of the region of the Caribbean of Costa Rica.

The discoveries recently begin. An impressive variety of mushrooms exists, ferns, líquenes and liver, various species of useful flora for the diet, tinturas, chemical products, and a great variety of plants with medicinal properties that give al foliage a great spectacularness.

Multicolored flowers, butterflies, dragonflies, birds of different size and plumages, species of native trees, bound with lianas and reeds, they conform a web of own, symbiotic relations of the ecosystem conformed by the tropical rainy forest of The Marta, that opens large perspectives for the scientific investigation for the benefit of the humanity.