Rainforest Adventures (Jaco)
Quick Facts
- Location : two miles from Jaco
- Area : 222 acres
- Time length : Tram 30 min; Canopy 2 hours; Exhibits 30 min
- Telephone : 2257-5961
- Hours : 7 a.m.- 4 p.m.
- Price : Package starting at $100
Jaco is known for the beach, but you won't have to drive far to find the repute of its rainforest. Just outside town, two miles down a dirt road through wildflower-studded meadows you'll reach the rainforest. More specifically, it's a 220-acre reserve that encompasses Rainforest Adventures, an adventure park that features the forest on an aerial tram, zip-line tour, and/or in its serpentarium and gardens.
read more closeAerial Tram Tour
Rainforest Adventures aerial tram climbs through the canopies of the transitional rainforest at heights of up to 150 feet. Experienced guides recite rainforest facts teaching guests about the incredible diversity of rainforest flora, pointing out some of Costa Rica's unique trees like the kerosene tree, named for its flammable sap, and the balsa tree renowned for its light, hard wood.
After a fifteen-minute, 1,400-foot ascent in one of the aerial tram's 80 cars, guests have the option to get off and join the canopy tour (with 10 lines and 15 platforms) or ride back down on the gondola to see views of rainforest-carpeted hills, palm farms and the Pacific coastline.
Heliconia and Medicinal Gardens
A half-mile long trail meanders among three different species of heliconia, past fruit trees and some 90 different plants that live in the heliconia and medicinal gardens at Rainforest Adventures. Inside the gardens, guides educate visitors about traditional Costa Rican crops like sugar cane, cocoa and coffee as well as medicinal plants like bitter wood, used to treat indigestion.
Serpentarium
The outdoor serpentarium at Rainforest Adventures features rainforest oddities like the obsidian-colored neotropical coach whip snake that uses its tail to whip its prey. A trail through the forest leads visitors to nine different terrariums holding 15 different snake species including four of Costa Rica's boa constrictors, as well as some of Costa Rica's most dangerous venomous snakes like the neotropical rattlesnake and the palm pit viper.