While attending a tourism exposition in San Jose, Costa Rica in the early 1990’s, I learned about plans for a new ecotourist attraction that would allow people to explore and learn first hand about the rich and complex diversity of life in the rainforest canopy. It’s estimated that about two-thirds of a rainforest’s species live in the canopy (the uppermost, branching layer of the forest). One of the guest speakers at the Expo was the well-known tropical biologist, Dr. Donald Perry, who for many years had studied the diverse mix of fauna and flora in the rainforest canopy by utilizing a system of pulleys and cables to navigate among the treetops. Addressing the many travel agents, the press and members of the travel industry who were attending the Expo, Dr. Perry announced his plan to develop and operate the Rainforest Aerial Tram, Costa Rica’s First Canopy Tour. The Aerial Tram would be modeled after a ski-lift gondola ride consisting of a series of small open-air cable cars each held together by a three kilometers long cable. The first rainforest Aerial tram opened in 1994, about an hour’s drive from San Jose (Costa Rica’s capital city) on a private rainforest reserve just outside of Braulio Carrillo National Park.

Since the introduction of the first Rainforest Aerial Tram in 1994, the canopy tour business spread like wildfire in Costa Rica. Several more Aerial Tram tours opened - including a Rainforest Aerial Tram near the Pacific Coast Beach resort of Jaco (sister of the original Rainforest Aerial Tram near Braulio Carillo National Park) as well as an unrelated Aerial Tram near Arenal volcano. In addition, several canopy tours have utilized suspension bridges for tourists to walk among the treetops. However, it is the zip-line tour which has really taken over the canopy tour industry. Today, there are currently over 100 canopy tours available in Costa Rica, most of them located in close proximity to the more popular resort and tourist areas. By far most of the canopy tours are of the zip-line variety, which is very fast paced and is more akin to an amusement park ride than a means of learning about nature.

On the zip-line tour, people are attached to an overhead cable with a safety harness, propelling themselves from one tree platform to the next at relatively fast speeds. Small animals and birds that live high up in the canopy might mistake you for a flying ape or a UFO. This type of canopy tour may frighten some people who are afraid of heights. A word of caution - while this type of tour is undeniably fun and thrilling like bungee jumping, it can also be very dangerous. There is no government regulation in Costa Rica of these canopy tours, so before you get strapped into the harness, you should check out the safety standards of the outfitter and verify that they have a proven track record in these types of tours. Since 1997, there have been two zip-line tour deaths in Costa Rica that have been attributed to faulty harnesses.

The canopy tour, which has been entrenched in Costa Rica as a popular eco-attraction, has since been introduced to many other popular tropical destinations from South Africa and Ghana in Africa to Jamaica and St. Lucia in the Caribbean and Peru in South America.

While I have not been on any canopy tours in Costa Rica per se, I did have the pleasure of going on a canopy tour in December 1995 while visiting Ghana in West Africa. Located not far from from Ghana’s Gold Cost, Kakum Rainforest was chosen as the site of Ghana’s first canopy tour. A relatively new attraction at the time, this canopy tour consisted of a series of suspension bridges between platforms located high up in the rainforest canopy. It was very fun but my traveling companion, a young lady from Accra, Ghana’s Capital, experienced a fear of heights. Eventually she conquered her fears and completed the walk among the treetops feeling total exhilarated.

Factoid: It is reported that Canopy tours generate some $120 million annually in Costa Rica , and attract by conservative estimates over 200,000 tourists every year.

Reference:

http://www.fodors.com/miniguides/mgresults.cfm?destination=costa_rica@53&cur_section=fea&feature=30011

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 at 9:41 am and is filed under Costa Rica, Ghana, nature, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.