Luxury accomodations in a spacious bed and breakfast with featherbed and fireplace a couple of blocks from the beach and studio. Spa treatment, wine tasting, gourmet French cuisine, fresh seafood, crab, danish pastry party, live music nightlife with firepits, dancing, beautiful ocean sunsets on the seven mile beach with a two level seawalk.

http://stores.ebay.com/carlsbad-sculpture-art-and-gifts?refid=store

Duration : 0:2:32

Technorati Tags: advanced, adventure, All-Inclusive, and, art, artist, artwork, beach, bed, beginner, breakfast, bronze, bust, class, clay, creative, dancing, experience, forbes, fun, gallery, gourmet, instruction, learn, live, lynn, music, nightlife, ocean, painting, portrait, restaurant, romantic, school, sculptor, sculpture, shop, spa, sunset, theater, unique, unusual, vacation, watercolor, wine, workshop

There are lots of companies that supply qualified guides and equipment for outdoor activities in this region. Whitewater Rafting and Kayaking are particularly popular here, given the number of white water rivers and waterfalls. The scenery is spectacular as participants wind their way through miles of rainforest. The sport of Canyoning is also catered for. Thick jungle and rivers strewn with boulders make challenging terrain and instructors will teach how to negotiate with ropes and harnesses.

Some wonderful natural landmarks are only accessible on horseback and a Costa Rica adventure is ideal for horseback riders to journey through forest, mountain trails and across jungle rivers. Nature lovers and bird watchers will also appreciate this area. Expert naturalist guides take groups through isolated regions to spot tree frogs, lizards, snakes, plants, caymans and exotic birds.

It’s also possible to take to the skies in hot air balloons, an opportunity to see the monkeys and birds in the canopy of trees. The balloon will travel over rainforest and mountain villages with passengers in a traditional wicker basket. The highlight of any trip on a Costa Rica adventure is to go over the Arenal Volcano, an active volcano and so the pilot will not get too close!

If mountain bikers like it tough, then this is the place to come. Near vertical 4×4 mountain tracks will test even the most experienced. However, there are less challenging trails too. Bikers will be taken through jungle, rivers and beaches. Equipment will include helmets, gloves, water bottles and energy bars. As well as the guides, there is a support vehicle, 2-way radios and first aid kits.

4×4 vehicle trips are also an exciting prospect. Most rural roads are made from mud or dirt. It’s worth the effort because these vehicles can access areas that smaller cars can’t. Drivers will be rewarded with some terrific scenery and the opportunity to see wildlife on their Costa Rica adventure.

Sea Kayaking is also popular as the country is bordered by two seas. Kayakers go through estuaries, canals and the pleasantly warm Caribbean. The trip will comprise of everything from gentle paddling to wilder stretches of water.

Technorati Tags: adventure, Costa Rica

Copyright Jim Rogers, all rights reserved

Belize, formerly British Honduras, is a country in Central America. Once part of the Mayan, and very briefly the Spanish Empire, it was most recently affiliated with the British Empire, prior to gaining its independence in 1981. The country is bordered to the south and west by Guatemala, to the north by Mexico, and to the east by the Caribbean Sea.

Belize has a diverse society, composed of many cultures and speaking many languages. It is the only country in Central America where English is an official language, although Creole and Spanish are also widely spoken. With 8,867 square miles (22,960 km²) of territory and 320,000 people (2008 est.),[2] the population density is the lowest in the Central American region and one of the lowest in the world. The country’s population growth rate, 2.21% (2008 est.),[3] is the highest in the region and one of the highest in the western hemisphere. It remains a Commonwealth realm. Culturally, Belize associates primarily with the English-speaking Caribbean countries such as Jamaica, or Trinidad and Tobago.

The origin of the name Belize is unclear, but one idea is that the name is from the Maya word belix, meaning “muddy water,” applied to the Belize River.

Before the arrival of Europeans, Belize was part of the territory of the Maya. The Mopan Maya were the original inhabitants of Belize. The Maya civilization spread itself over Belize beginning around 1500 BC and flourished until about AD 900. In the late classic period of Maya civilization (before A.D. 1000), as many as 400,000 people may have lived in the area that is now Belize. Some lowland Maya still occupied the area when Europeans arrived in the 1500s. Spanish colonists tried to settle the inland areas of Belize, but they abandoned these efforts following Maya rebellion against Spanish authority.

English and Scottish buccaneers known as the Baymen first settled on the coast of Belize in 1638, seeking a sheltered region from which they could attack Spanish ships (see English settlement in Belize). The settlers turned to cutting logwood during the 1700s. The wood yielded a fixing agent for clothing dyes that was vital to the European woolen industry. The Spanish granted the British settlers the right to occupy the area and cut logwood in exchange for an end to piracy. Historical accounts from the early 1700s note that Africans were brought to the settlement from Jamaica to work as slaves and cut timber. As early as 1800 Africans outnumbered Europeans by about four to one. By then the settlements primary export had shifted from logwood to mahogany.

For fear of provoking Spanish attack, the British government did not initially recognize the settlement in Belize as a colony. It allowed the settlers to establish their own laws and forms of government. During this time a few wealthy settlers gained control of the local legislature, known as the Public Meeting, as well as of most of the settlements land and timber. The British first appointed a superintendent over the area in 1786.

The Spanish, who claimed sovereignty over the whole of Central America, tried often to gain control by force over Belize, but they were not successful. Spains last attack ended on 10 September, 1798, when the people of Belize decisively defeated a Spanish fleet at the Battle of St. George’s Caye. The anniversary of the battle is now a national holiday in Belize.

In the early 1800s the British sought greater control over the settlers, threatening to suspend the Public Meeting unless it observed the governments instructions to abolish slavery. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1838, but this did little to change working conditions for laborers in the Belize settlement. Slaves of the colony were valued for their potentially superior abilities in the work of mahogany extraction. As a result, former slave owners in British Honduras earned £53.6.9 on average per slave, the highest amount paid in any British territory.

In 1836, after the emancipation of Central America from Spanish rule, the British claimed the right to administer the region. In 1862 Great Britain formally declared it a British Crown Colony, subordinate to Jamaica, and named it British Honduras. As a colony Belize began to attract British investors. Among the British firms that dominated the colony in the late 1800s was the Belize Estate and Produce Company, which eventually acquired half of all the privately held land in the colony. Belize Estates influence accounts in part for the colonys reliance on the mahogany trade throughout the rest of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.

Copyright Jim Rogers – provided as a special contribution to The Fenton Report

Duration : 0:2:28

Technorati Tags: adventure, adventures, advisor, agencies, agent, airline, belize, best, building, cathedral, caye, channel, city, company, day, discovery, funds, governor, guide, history, holiday, hotel, ideas, international, itinerary, johns, lighthouse, manager, map, minister, money, prime, queen, reef, resort, Resorts, st., time, tips, tour, travels, trip, vacation, Vacations, world

Duration : 0:7:38

Technorati Tags: 2000, adventure, Commercial, IOA, Islands, of, Orlando, resort, Studios, travel, Universal, USF

Duration : 0:8:38

Technorati Tags: adventure, belize, diving, flying, fox, hiking, honored, Ignacio, lonely, planet, rafting, reef, ruins, San, scuba, travel, zipline