Oh Give me a Home, Where Monkeys, Jaguars, Toucans, and Fer-De-Lance Roam...
Written: Jan 13 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Wild, raw jungle in a rugged, mountainous backcountry.
Cons: Difficult to explore deeply.
The Bottom Line: The Braulio Carrillo is a huge park. Very rugged. Very wild. The scenery is beyond magnificent. Are you up for it?!?!
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| mrkstvns's Full Review: Braulio Carrillo National Park |
Hard to believe but true. You can be sitting in your comfy, safe, San Jose hotel room at 8am and 30 minutes later, you can be in one of Costa Rica's most rugged, most challenging, most undeveloped rain forests: the sprawling Braulio Carrillo National Park. It's a tough park to get a handle on, and it's a tougher park to explore. A taste is easy...depth is the hard part.
You might think that it would be easy to explore Braulio Carrillo, since it is by the map, just 20km from the San Jose city limits. But it's not.
It will be easier for you to find guides to take you to the dry forests of the Pacific Coast, the lush cloud forests of Monteverde, or the coastal nesting grounds of Tortuguero --- all 2 to 4 hours away from San Jose --- than it is to find a guide who will take you further into Braulio Carrillo than a highway scenic overlook or the easy-to-access Aerial Tram.
About the Rainforests of Braulio Carrillo...
Shhhh!! Don't tell anyone, but you don't have to jump a plane to Costa Rica to see what the Braulio Carrillo rain forest looks like --- you can just jump in your mini-van and head over to Blockbuster to rent Jurassic Park. The dinosaurs are fake, the theme park is fake, but the jungle scenes are real jungle, and most of 'em were shot here in the Braulio Carrillo National Park.
You don't need to worry about T-Rex chasing you down, but the park is teeming with wildlife ready, willing, and quite able to do you serious bodily harm. Jaguars live in Braulio Carrillo --- ocelots too, but they're probably not the most dangerous denizens to most visitors. I'd personally be far more worried about running into one of the several types of very nasty, very poisonous snakes who live in those forests --- especially the notoriously potent Fer-de-Lance --- though bushmasters and rattlesnakes are hardly uncommon. Neither are birds for that matter, since there are allegedly some 400 avian species nesting in this park. Pura vida!
It's not going to get the blood roiling like a good snake tale, but to be truthful, most travelers should probably worry more about what bugs can do than what any snakes or mammals might be out for blood. Everybody thinks "malaria" when you talk about Central American rainforests, but dengue is at least as nasty and has been more of a problem than malaria in Central America lately. I wouldn't think of going too far afield without a jumbo size can of Deep Woods Off (they don't sell this stuff by the keg, do they?) Good boots, long pants, a hat, and a raincoat would also be appropriate.
The park itself is huge and hugely dense. Once you get more than a few meters off the trail, your chance of getting lost is quite high, and every year people die in Braulio Carrillo National Park --- most from exposure since it's a rain forest and you can get dumped on any time, day or night, and it's in the mountains where night time temperatures drop faster than criminal charges against Texas Republican congressmen after appropriate judges campaign funds receive sudden "anonymous" contributions.
If you do decide to explore on your own, get a good park map and make sure you're always on established trails.
Most of what you'll see in this park is nature at its spectacular finest: towering old growth primary and new growth secondary rain forest. Rugged mountain peaks. Two volcanoes: Volcan Barva and Volcan Cacho Negro. Seven significant rivers. Too many mountain streams and waterfalls to contemplate.
Driving Through the Park...
I'll bet over half the people who visit Costa Rica catch at least a few stunning vistas of Braulio Carrillo --- it's hard to avoid the park, since the main highway between San Jose and Limon runs through a very rugged section. The road winds up and down mountainous curves, but it moves pretty well despite the almost constant truck traffic, because there are passing lanes on all of the ascending sections. The trucks still slow down to 30 kph, but you can blow past 'em at 80 if you don't mind missing the scenery...better to slow down, and pull off on a few of the overlook points if you ask me. I wouldn't blow through American parks like Shenandoah National Park in high gear, and I certainly wouldn't miss the opportunity to see the scenery of Braulio Carrillo either.
From the San Jose - Limon highway, there are three points where you can stop to explore and get an up-close and personal perspective on the park:
* there is a small ranger station near the Zurqui Tunnel,
* the main park administration area is towards the Limon end of the park at a place called La Quebrada Gonzalez (both of these areas have parking and hiking trails --- more on that in a moment),
* or, you can stop at the Aerial Tram (which costs out the ying-yang, but it's gentle, easy, and accessible.
If you are staying at any San Jose area hotel, ask the tour desk or hotel front desk staff if they offer trips to the Aerial Tram --- almost all of 'em do, and this is a simpler-than-brainless way to see something of the Braulio Carillo forests. The tour bus will pick you up at your hotel and bring you back later the same day (or overnight, which is a good idea if you're a bird watcher). If you've got a car and you're driving between San Jose and Limon, just pull off the highway when you see the green Aerial Tram signs and you can roll your own "tour".
If you go the Aerial Tram route, here's what to expect...
The Aerial Tram...
About 15 years ago, the original Aerial Tram was installed in the buffer area at the edge of the Braulio Carrillo rainforest. It was the brainchild of a biologist named Donald Perry who envisioned a way of letting people see and experience the rainforest canopy without risking life and limb climbing hundreds of feet up into the treetops. Today, the folks behind the operation have another Aerial Tram on Costa Rica's Pacific coast, just a few minutes from the popular beach areas of Jaco (as well as similar trams on the Caribbean islands of Dominica and Santa Lucia).
The Braulio Carrillo tram is the one they refer to on their web site and in travel brochures as "Atlantico". The forest is quite a long ways from the Atlantic Ocean, but they call it that because it's just to the Atlantic side of the Continental Divide --- which runs through Braulio Carrillo National Park.
So anyway, the aerial tram is like a big ski lift, but one that runs through the rainforest canopy, giving you --- quite literally --- a birds eye view of the rainforest. The tram ride is about a mile, and takes about 45 minutes to an hour (depending on crowds). It's also a very expensive way to see the rain forest since the Aerial Tram is a for-profit operation and prices start at US$50 (add about $25 if you do their complete tours, which will include door-to-door transportation services). Their full-day tours are not a bad deal since they get you there and back, include nature hikes with a park naturalist, and give you a full lunch with drinks included.
Info is on their web site: www.rainforestram.com
I did just the tram ride and then walked the trails, and it was an excellent experience, even if it was overpriced, IMHO. There is also a lodge on-site, and it may be worthwhile to spend at least one night on site since most rain forest birds are most active in the early morning hours. If birds are your deal, overnight at the lodge is your game.
One tip: Don't miss the hanging bridge trail --- it's very cool --- you walk an easy, paved trail through the dense jungle, then come upon a shaky, but actually very safe, bridge, suspended by steel cables over the rolling waters of the Molinete River --- very cool!
The Hiking Trails...
The two ranger stations on the main highway each have hiking trails that start near their parking lots. Pony up your permit fee, slather on the DEET, and spend a few hours communing with nature. Most of the trails are no more than a couple miles in length, but it doesn't take long before you lose sight of "civilization" and its sounds. The Quebrada Gonzalez ranger station has more, and better trails, and conventional wisdom is that your car is more likely to be unmolested there than at the Zurqui ranger station.
If you have your own rental car, you can also head to the town of Sacramento where there's another park entrance that gives you access to hiking trails up to the summit of Volcan Barva where there are also two lakes and several species of rare birds, including the elusive quetzal. I've heard there's also an abandoned roadway called the Banana Highway, but I have no idea where you pick it up or what you'd see there.
Backpackers have another, far more challenging option open to them. There is an extremely difficult trail that cuts through the heart of the park and goes all the way to Volcan Barva on the far side of the park. Shelters exist along the trail, which takes at least 4 days to hike. Backpackers are generally required to have a local guide with them, but as always, check with the park authorities for current info.
Logistics...
Braulio Carrillo is the largest park in Central Costa Rica, embracing well over 110,000 acres of mountainous rain forest. There are no developed amenities within the park --- it is a raw ecological zone --- and no paved roads other than the San Jose - Limon highway go into the park.
If you plan to hike into the park, access permits cost US$7 for one day, or $10 for multi-day permits, and are obtained at any of the three ranger station access points between 8am and 3pm.
Say "Cheese!"
Got me a new digital camera and took me a few cool snapshots of the Braulio Carillo area. Take a look...
http://www.tiogringo.com/braulio.html
Bottom Line...
Braulio Carrillo is a beautiful region of dense, mountainous rain forests. It's a very natural area, and a very rugged region, seldom explored deeply by any but the most hardy backcountry adventurers. You can see and experience some of its stunning grandeur without too much pain, but Braulio Carrillo is an area that's mostly wild, untamed backcountry. Pura vida!
Closely Related Reading...
Want to know more about the great outdoors, Costa Rica style? Here's some starting points...
* Irazu Volcano National Park
* Costa Rica's National Parks
Coming soon...
* Tortuguero National Park
* Manuel Antonio National Park
* Carara National Park
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Friends
Best Time to Travel Here: Dec - Feb
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