Modern bathing resort at Port Limon 
that the negro folks are not natives of Costa Rica. They are 
British West Indians brought over from Jamaica to work in 
the banana and cacao plantations which line the coastal regions 
and they lend to Limon that picturesque touch which permits 
one to compare the place with a town in the British Antilles. 
Before the train leaves for San Jose there is usually suf¬ 
ficient time for the tourist to visit the city's outstanding points 
of interest. 
Worthy of at least a brief visit are Vargas Park, a 
miniature botanical garden, offering a welcome shade after 
the heat and glare of the open streets; the Market, with its 
abundance of fresh, tropical fruits; the Cathedral, the mo¬ 
dern and well-equipped bathing pavillion on the beach, and 
the Miramar Club which has an open-air swimming pool 
fed with fresh sea-water. If you have time. The United Fruit 
Company's Zone, with its comfortable bungalows, well-kept 
gardens and its Community House, the rendez-vous of the 
Company's American employees, will open its gates to you. 
Here, a refreshing dip in the sea may be indulged in K Visitors 
obliged to stay in Puerto Limon for any length of time will 
find the Park Hotel homelike and comfortable. 
If you hire an automobile to do your sightseeing in 
Limon the maximum legal fare is $ 7 per hour or $ 1 p*er 
person per short trip within the city limits: each additional 
passenger # 0.50 (Costa Rican currency). 
If you have any preconceived ideas that railroad travel 
in Latin-American countries is not exactly a thing of com¬ 
fort you may discard them at once as far as Costa Rica is 
concerned. Comfortable parlor-cars with wide windows, runn¬ 
ing over the smoothest of tracks, enable the traveller to admire 
. * ' . ** ‘ •' - 0 t ; 
the ever-changing panorama disclosed to his wondering eyes 
« • ■ 
in perfect comfort. 
8 
Sunset scene at Port Limon 
For the first few miles after leaving Puerto Limon the 
train track runs at a stone's throw from the seashore, giving 
the passenger pleasing vistas of the palm-dined coral strand 
being laved by the gigantic breakers of the. Atlantic Ocean. 
A little later the train enters an almost unbroken area of cacao 
and banana plantations, each with its quota of simple frame 
dwellings whose verandahs swarm with gossipping Negroes. 
Here and there the discerning eye will pick out giant 
trees whose thick trunks are devoid of branches for fifty or 
more feet up, proclaiming the fact that this region was once 
a dense, tropical forest which has now succumbed to the 
developing hand of man. Brightly-colored parrots, long- 
billed toucans and diminutive humming birds catch the eye 
as they swoop though the air, not in ones or twos, but in 
their hundreds. ■ , . 
Between Siquirres, an important banana centre, and Tu- 
rrialba, where the first coffee farms are seen, the railroad 
virtually runs on a narrow ledge poised, twixt mountain 
and river. On the left are the rushing, roaring waters of the 
River Rcventazon, swirling up to the very base of the track, 
while on the right the high, timbered mountains tower vertically 
upwards. 
Thrills there are in plenty as the train negotiates the 
sharp curves of the torrential river and passes easily across 
yawning chasms via substantial bridges which do credit to 
pioneers who, under the guiding hand of the American engineer. 
Minor C. Keith, constructed the railroad from coast to capital 
back in the 1880s. 
On the banks of the river an occasional, fat alligator may 
be spied basking in the sun but the rumbling and snorting, 
of the passing train fail to disturb him. 
The passing of the train is the event of the day for all 
9 
