News History Puerto Viejo is a sleepy coastal town that Emily Eagen, Emily Howell and Shaun Sellers decided was the best place to drop out and hang out.
Horses wander in the streets, surfers smoke marijuana on the beach and the bars are open late.
The bible of study abroad, it describes more than 1,700 programs in 97 countries, from anthropology in Argentina to public policy in Zimbabwe. The number of Americans studying abroad has more than doubled since 1985, with about 114,000 going overseas in 1997-98, the last year for which statistics are available. There were 2,973 in Costa Rica alone, the eighth-highest total of any country. The tiny country, with its diverse topography and climates, hosts about as many Americans as the entire African continent. Americans studied botany in Costa Rica's rain forests, marine biology along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, anthropology among the native Indians, and Spanish in the old-world capital of San Jose.