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Coco's Island Cruise At
Bargain Prices
The Isla del Coco or Coco's Island,
approximately 550 kilometres from the
Pacific shore of Costa Rica will be the
focus of a local tour operator to attract
Costa Ricans to visit their natural wonder.
Typically a week cruise that includes the
island costs us$7.000 or more. However, the
Fundación Amigos de las Isla del Coco, is
offering the one week, all-inclusive
vacation, for only between us$2.000 and
us$2.500, depending on the type of room.
The price includes transfers from San José
to Los Sueños marina in playa Herradura,
food, accomodation, activities on the island
and live entertainment.
ocos Island was declared a Costa Rican
National Park by means of Executive Decree
in 1978. Cocos Island National Park was
designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO
in 1997. In 2002, the World Heritage Site
designation was extended to include an
expanded marine zone of 1,997 km². In
addition, it is included in the list of
"Wetlands of International Importance".
The only persons allowed to live on Cocos
Island are Costa Rican Park Rangers, who
have established two encampments, including
one at English Bay. Tourists and ship crew
members are allowed ashore only with
permission of island rangers, and are not
permitted to camp, stay overnight or collect
any flora, fauna or minerals from the
island.
This island is popular in pirate lore as
well. It is said that over 300 expeditions
have gone in search of treasure such as the
hoard of Benito Bonito, the Treasure of
Lima, and many others. Some incidents of
small caches have been discovered, leading
many to believe the stories of vast pirate
treasures to be valid.
Cocos Island was short-listed as a candidate
to be one of the New7Wonders of Nature by
the New Seven Wonders of the World
Foundation. As of June 2009 it is ranking
second in the islands category.[7]
The cruise leaves the Pacific coast on April
24 and returns on May 1.
More information on the cruise can be found
at: www.cocosisland.org/crucero.
Cocos Island in fiction
The book Desert Island proposed the highly
detailed theory that Daniel Defoe used the
Isla dell Cocoze as an accurate model for
his descriptions of the island inhabited by
the marooned Robinson Crusoe. However Defoe
placed Crusoe's island not in the Pacific,
but rather off the coast of Venezuela in the
Atlantic Ocean.
Robinson's neighbouring Terra Firma is shown
on the colour map of Joannes Jansson
(Amsterdam) depicting the northeastern
corner of South America, entitled Terra
Firma et Novum Regnum Granatense et Popayan.
It belongs to the early group of plates
printed by William Blaeu from 1630 onwards.
The properly called Terra Firma was the
Isthmus of Darien.Crusoe's two references to
Mexico are against a South American island
as well.
The Michael Crichton novel Jurassic Park
centers on the fictitious Isla Nublar that
is off of the west coast of Costa Rica. Isla
del Coco may be the inspiration for this
island. Supporting this argument is the
Dreamworks Interactive game Jurassic Park:
Trespasser (1998) which used Cocos Island's
topography as a substitute for the fictional
island on which it takes place. Also, "Isla
Nublar" is intended to mean "Cloudy Island",
and Cocos Island is the only island with
cloud forests in the eastern Pacific.
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