Outdoors

Swinging From Treetops in the Jungles of Costa Rica

By Gerald Eskenazi
The New York Times

August 2, 1998

There are countries made for hiking, and some made for fishing. But in Costa Rica, the paradigm of an ecologically concerned nation, you can scamper over the jungle treetops tethered to the world's highest clothesline.

More than two-thirds of this Central American country is protected by law from harvesting or cutting or otherwise insulting the land. So what do you do about the cloud forest, which perpetually hides most of the sky? Simple -- at least to Rodrigo Carazo, one of this country's former Presidents.

He constructed a sort of sky-hiking among the treetops in that verdant place. You look at, and travel over, the land from above. It is called a Canopy Adventure, and you are part of the panorama. This is not a passive activity. You are working the rope, and you are controlling your speed.

Read more about Costa Rica.

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company