eco tour dominical

eco tour dominical 

Breakfast at the hotel and beginning of your ecotour. Your rental car (4x4, Daihatsu Bego, manual shift) will be delivered at 8am. Departure for Irazu Volcano, a National Park on 2’300 hectares. Irazu is Costa Rica’s highest active volcano (alt: 3’432 m) and accessible by car. On a clear day with good weather it’s possible to see both the Pacific (to the West) and the Caribbean Sea (to the East).

Continuation with a short stopover in Cartago (the former capital of Costa Rica), with an optional visit of the famous Basilica de los Angeles with its wood-covered interior.Breakfast at the lodge. San Gerardo is one of the country’s best places to spot a variety of plants and birds, including toucans, green woodpeckers, trogons... and of course the famous Resplendent Quetzal, the mythical bird whose feathers Mayas used to decorate their headdresses. January to June is the best time to see the quetzal – in this season the male bird grows magnificent long tail feathers in beautiful blue-green colors.

Departure via San Isidro del General on a curvy mountain road with a spectacular Alpine scenery. Descend from the mountains to Dominical, a small beach resort in an otherwise remote and wild corner of the coast.Suggestion: Visit the nearby nature reserve of Hacienda Baru. Among other activities, the Hacienda Baru offers the “Flight of the Toucan”, a sort of canopy tour on a zip-line that allows you to discover the forest vegetation from above. If you prefer, you can visit the Hacienda’s nature reserve on a path of 7 km. This private reserve is situated along a beautiful beach at the mouth of the Rio Baru, and is a great place to observe some 310 species of birds, as well as an exceptional variety of plants pre-Columbian petroglyphs.Today you will dip into the tropical natural wonders of Corcovado National Park. The tour operator will pick you up at Hacienda Baru to take you to the docks of Sierpe (approx. 1h30)., where you embark on a boat that takes you over the River Sierpe to the park entrance at San Pedrillo. The boat trip takes about 1.5 h: the first section of the canals leads through vast mangrove forests and the second part over the Pacific Sea.

From San Pedrillo you start walking in the forest and along the beaches of the park, with a river crossing. Corcovado is one of the last untouched zones of wilderness in Costa Rica and has many kilometers of trails through intact nature. The wildlife includes jaguars, tapirs, plenty of toucans and macaws, crocodiles and more.

Return trip by boat, with some stops in the mangrove forest to watch the wildlife: snakes, monkeys, bats, crocodiles and more animals are waiting for you. With some luck (depending on the season) you should be able to spot whales, dolphins and turtles while crossing the ocean!

At Sierpe you will be picked up by a minibus that leads you back to Hacienda Baru.