Ziplines, bungees, and horses in Monteverde
The fear of heights holds an interesting power. Other fears make you run away, like spiders or commitment. But a healthy fear of heights teases out the endorphins, builds the rush and makes you crave new extremes. Even while making your stomach churn at the sight of a cliff.
read more closeStanding on a free hanging platform above Monteverde's forest and pastures, you can nearly see the Pacific coastline. Behind you, guests scream as they fly across the zip lines in tandem, while in front of you there's a small gate. Once it's open, you're ready for a swan dive into the tallest bungee jump in Central America.
While Monteverde is perhaps best known for its cloud forest, it remains one of Costa Rica's best adventure locations for canopy tours, horseback riding and bungee jumps. You'll find scores of different options for tours around town, but Extremos is the only place offering all three activities.
The horseback riding tour takes guests through the valleys around Monteverde near the town of Cañitas. Along the way you'll ride through secondary forest, coffee and banana farms, creeks and pastures with some of the most spectacular scenes of the area and the Pacific coastline.
On the canopy tours, guests soar high above the gulfs that divide the mountains of Monteverde where thrill-seekers test their limits along more than 2.5 miles of zip line cables in the area's longest zip line tour. The tour includes 15 cables, a 98-foot rappel, a Tarzan swing and a half-mile long cable that propels you over the valley like superman.
The bungee jump, a 470 foot drop, and extreme swing, 295 feet long, take guests out above a valley to dangle high about the valley. I humbly took it upon myself to see what they were all about, trying all of the tours in a single day.