Bob and Ann in Costa Rica 2004

Map of Santa Rosa National Park

We drove to Santa Rosa National Park to spend the day. The first national park in Costa Rica, the Santa Rosa National Park, was founded in 1972 to commemorate the Hacienda Santa Rosa. This was an historic battle fought in March 1856 between the invading forces of American William Walker and a ragtag army of Costa Rican volunteers. The oldest as well as the largest national park in the country, the Santa Rosa National Park is today part of the Guanacaste Conservation Area. It protects a sizable portion of the last tropical dry forest in the world.Located in Guanacaste province, the Santa Rosa National Park encompasses a huge chunk of the Santa Elena Peninsula - 49,515 hectares.

One of the main attractions of this park is that it is the only one of its kind on the planet where 10 distinctive habitations can be found. Deciduous forests, oak forests, mangrove swamps, littoral woodlands, evergreen forests, marshlands and savannahs cover the entire park area, which is home to over 115 species of mammals, over 10,000 species of insects, 250 species of birds, and around 100 species of amphibians and other reptiles. Whitetail deer, jaguars, collared peccary, olive ridley turtles, coatimundis, leatherback turtles and jaguarundis are just few of the many animals that can be found roaming freely in this park.

Filled with lush vegetation during the rainy season, the Santa Rosa National Park turns into a topical dry forest in summer, with many meandering trails and stunning beaches. The park is divided into two zones, the Santa Rosa section and the Murcielago section. The Santa Rosa section is home to La Casona, a historical mansion, which houses photographs, pictures, drawings and military equipment commemorating the battle of the Hacienda Santa Rosa.

We followed two of the hiking trails - one from La Casona and one from the campground.