For a country the size of Switzerland and with a population of almost four million people, Costa Rica is surprisingly advanced and in some cases leads the world in many aspects of the eco-tourism industry.

For starters, it has the world monopoly on canopy tours with several facilities dotted throughout its 51,000 square kilometers. A full quarter of the country is under national parks or nature reserves.

 At Monteverde in Costa Rica’s eco-touristic heartland, Tricia Welsh takes an exhilarating ride on a zip-line high above the treetops hooting and hollering like a howler monkey whose habitat is the forest below.