INCLUDES

Transportation from your San Jose area hotel, refreshments on board, lunch at Jaco Beach Hotel, guided hike through park’s trails.

Carara National Park is referred to as a transition forest because it includes two types of forest: dry forest to the north and rain forest to the south. Visitors will enjoy a wealth of flora and fauna gracing the plains and hills of the area. Rivers and marshes in the park are home to a diverse population of reptiles and amphibians. The forested areas are alive with monkeys, armadillos, peccaries, pacas, and small cats. Bird lovers will enjoy the sight of such exotic specimens as pink crane and anhinga, waterfowl such as roseate spoonbills, jacanas, pied-billed grebes and Mexican tiger-bitterns. This is one of only two areas in Costa Rica where scarlet macaws can be seen. The creatures are easiest to spot in the early morning or late afternoon. The best time for observing migratory birds is during the dry season.

The diversity of life here can be attributed to the variety of ecosystems found in the park, including marshlands, a lake, primary secondary and gallery forests. The marshlands are formed by the seasonal flooding of the Rio Grande de Tarcoles in the northern part of the Reserve. The lake is an abandoned meander of the Rio Grande de Tarcoles, 40 meters wide and 600 meters long (130 by 2,000 feet), but less than two meters (7 feet) deep. It is covered with “choreada”, water hyacinths and other aquatic plants. Crocodiles up to 3 meters (10 feet) long are common in both of these habitats as well as in the Rio Grande de Tarcoles.

The trees of the gallery forest (a secondary forest growing on land formerly used for agriculture), located on the banks of the river, are tall and densely packed, but are home to only a small population of wildlife. However, the primary forests, occupying most of the reserve, are multi-layered, species-rich, thick with an abundance of creeping vines and epiphytes. The tallest species include espavel, silk cotton, wild fig, nargusta and quamwood – which, in the dry season, takes on a spectacular appearance, covering itself with a coat of brilliant yellow flowers.

Animal lovers can look for four-eyed opossum, two-toed sloth, margay cat, vine snake, ocelot, kinkajou, tayra, agouti, collared peccary and white-tailed deer. In addition, you will be treated to sightings of scarlet macaw, colored aracari, American egret, great tinamou and turkey vulture, plus such flora as poro, viscoyol palm, aquatic lily, and trumpet tree.

Archeological sites uncovered in this area indicate that between 300 and 1500 AD a village was located here, complete with a cemetery situated on the hill overlooking El Rio Grande de Tarcoles. Digging has unearthed a rectangular foundation for a structure six meters by four (twenty by thirteen feet) made from calcareous rocks taken from the nearby river. They call the village Lomas Carara, and speculate that it was a thriving population center in the centuries before Columbus, probably wielding political and economical control over the area below the Rio Grande de Tarcoles.