The Tirimbina Biological Reserve has become one of our favorite places in the tropical rainforest of Costa Rica. We love to take our customers there during their stay in Costa Rica because of several reasons:
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Location
Here is a map of the Tirimbina Biological Reserve, so you can have an idea how to get there from San Jose
Not so touristy
Even though Sarapiqui is not one of those touristic attractions that one would see all over the internet, the Tirimbina Biological Reserve is a very good place to see the really not so touristy Costa Rica, because the reserve is close to the village of “La Virgen de Sarapiqui”, a very small town with hardly any tourism there, so you can experience our Costa Rican culture.
Science studies
The Tirimbina Biological Reserve itself is a non-profit organization that invests all of the funds they generate in Science studies mainly in mammals, bats, and butterflies. That’s another reason we like to take our customers there because we are actually taking our visitors to a very beautiful rainforest that we know they will like and at the same time, we are contributing with science studies; that’s what we would call in Costa Rica “killing 2 birds with one stone”.
Wildlife
Another reason is that the Tirimbina Biological Reserve is VERY good for the observation of wildlife; it is very common to see lots of rainforest animals, such as howler monkeys, white-faced capuchin monkeys, sloths, LOTS of toucans (we call Sarapiqui “toucan land”), iguanas, colorful frogs among others, and I’ve even seen the biologists capturing kinkajous, bats and other rare animals with their traps in the reserve, to be able to do studies on them.
Chocolate tour
Another good reason is that the Tirimbina Biological Reserve has the best chocolate tour in Costa Rica. When I say chocolate tour, please don’t think of the Hershey’s or Nestle’s factory, please don’t. The chocolate tour there is more like a rustic experience, where you would learn everything about chocolate in a time frame of 2 hours, focusing more into how our native Costa Rican tribes used the cocoa fruits, their rituals because cocoa was very important and spiritual for them since they believed that it was a representation of the son of their gods. Besides the history of cocoa during pre-Columbian times, you would also learn how it was introduced in Europe during the colonial time and of course, we’ll tell you how it was turned into chocolate. You would even have the opportunity to grind your own beverage and during the chocolate tour you would be able to taste it in different ways: as a drink like our natives prepared it during their rituals, as a powder mixed with sugar and cinnamon which is my favorite and of course as chocolate bars.
Hanging bridge
One last interesting thing about the Tirimbina Biological Reserve, is that in order to enter the reserve you would have to cross a very large 264 meters (800 feet roughly) hanging bridge over the Sarapiqui River. This hanging bridge is a great place to take pictures and if you are lucky, you might see some wild animals at eye level on the trees next to the hanging bridge, or monkeys right on the bridge, which is something very common!
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