Escape to Costa Rica

Gaia helps capture a rogue crocodile before travelling to Monteverde Cloud Forest and scaling a giant tree with scientists who preserve life forms. Then she meets President Luis Guillermo Solis.

In this episode, Gaia goes white-water rafting down Costa Rica's most spectacular river to a remote ecolodge, to meet the people who fought to save the river from being dammed, and then visits the largest hydroelectric dam in Central America. She treks into the exclusion zone of an active volcano, and takes a dip in a hot spring, to understand how Costa Ricans have harnessed one of nature's most destructive forces. And on the stunning Pacific coast, she helps to build artificial reefs from unlikely recycling materials.

Science writer and explorer Gaia Vince visits Costa Rica to find out how this remarkable little republic has become 'the happiest, most sustainable country in the world'. Costa Rica runs its national grid on rivers and volcanoes and by 2021 it will be carbon neutral. It has no military, its rainforest is actually increasing, and it's home to more than 500,000 species. In this final episode Gaia goes horse riding with a 99-year-old cowboy, takes a canoe trip to meet the indigenous Bribri and witnesses an incredible natural phenomenon as thousands of olive ridley turtles arrive on a remote Costa Rican beach to lay their eggs: known as an 'arribada'.