Nicuesa Lodge welcomes guests for Christmas with fun activities

Christmas holidays are nearly here! How fun it will be to spend Christmas and New Year’s on an amazing tropical beach alongside the incredible Costa Rica rainforest. Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge welcomes guests who will be spending their Christmas vacation in Costa Rica with us. Our staff is looking forward to celebrating holiday festivities with you and we have lots of fun activities lined up. Our chef and kitchen personnel are planning special dinners on Dec. 24 for Christmas Eve and Dec. 31 for New Year’s Eve. The gala feasts will include roast pork, grilled whole fresh fish caught by Nicuesa staff, and other traditional Costa Rican foods including fresh vegetables, rice, beans, plantains, salads and fresh fruit. Kids’ menu items include fresh fish fingers, fresh cassava chips, veggies and ice cream. Nicuesa Lodge meals are served family-style all together in our magnificent two-story tree house-style main lodge building. The open-air dining area allows unobstructed views of the tree canopy (great for wildlife spotting), the forest, beach and ocean, and at night, a huge star-filled sky.   In Costa Rica, tamales are an essential Christmas food. Tamales in Costa Rica are made from corn meal and are filled with rice, potatoes, vegetables, garlic and onions, and usually shredded pork, and then wrapped in banana or plantain leaves and boiled. Guests can join in the cultural tradition to learn how to make their own tamales. Kids of all ages will have fun painting coconuts and decorating Christmas boxes to be hopefully filled by Santa on Christmas Eve. Natural adventures are an essential part of the Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge experience, so we will have a kayaking competition for children and adults on Dec. 24 in the calm bay in front of Nicuesa’s beach. Playa Nicuesa Sustainability Coordinator, Natalia Solis, will lead an end-of-year tribute to the Earth on Dec. 30 with a tree planting ceremony, where guests can give the sustainable gift of a new tree to the world. The trees, all native to Costa Rica, were donated by the Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT).   On Dec. 31, Nicuesa staff will engage in the last beach cleanup of the year, and invite guests to join in their eco-conscious effort. People come to visit Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge in Costa Rica for its pristine tropical beach and beautiful rainforest. Efforts to keep the beach unspoiled were recognized earlier this year when Playa Nicuesa received the important Ecological Blue Flag Award for having one of Costa Rica’s cleanest beaches. Visit Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge in Costa Rica Can’t come at Christmas? We invite you to visit us in 2016! Playa Nicuesa Rainforest Lodge is your perfect destination for a rainforest and beach holiday in Costa Rica. Located in the rainforest on a remote beach of the warm water gulf of Golfo Dulce in southern Costa Rica, we are one of the first sustainable tourism eco-hotels in Costa Rica and hold the highest level of the Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST) program. We offer an oasis of comfortable, rustic luxury in the jungle on our 165-acre private rainforest preserve that borders the wild Piedras Blancas National Park. Being a unique adventure travel destination, the only way to get here is by boat across the gulf from either Golfito or Puerto Jimenez. We recommend flying NatureAir or Sansa Airlines to either Puerto Jimenez or Golfito. We will pick you up and transfer you by boat to our lodge â€" included in your stay, along with all meals, unlimited self-guided hikes in the private reserve, use of kayaks, snorkeling and fishing equipment, and our beachfront yoga deck. Contact us today to reserve your 2016 Costa Rica family vacation, honeymoon, nature and adventure vacation, or yoga retreat. Article by Shannon Farley