Shore Excursion: Chocolate Lovers Tour From Puerto Limon

What your day looks like

If you love chocolate, nature, and observing wild animals in their natural habitat such as monkeys, sloths, and colored frogs, this is the perfect tour for you. We start the tour from the Puerto Limón Cruise Dock to the Cahuita National Park community. After a pleasant 45-minute bus ride through the beautiful Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and enjoying the extensive explanations of our guide, we will arrive at Cacao Trails Tayku, a place where we will have the opportunity to learn everything about this wonderful fruit as it is the Cocoa and how it is transformed into one of the most desired products around the world: Chocolate. In this property, managed by a local family with more than 100 years of chocolate tradition, you will be able to know its history and how it has managed to survive through time. Accompanied by expert local guides, we will visit the cocoa plantations to learn about the plant, the cultivation techniques, its fruits, harvest, and processing of the seeds until we reach the final product: Chocolate. In the process, you will be able to taste a fresh cocoa bean and delight in its sweet taste and you will be amazed at how different it is before processing. On the tour, we will have the opportunity to visit the Cocoa Museum, which has been created by this family collecting artifacts, machinery, and instruments that are used to make chocolate. In this museum, you will have the opportunity to make your own chocolate guided by indigenous women who will teach you the process with their traditional methods combining various natural ingredients such as sea salt, vanilla, nutmeg, black pepper, hot chili, and others. And best of all, you will enjoy eating a lot of chocolate in different flavors. You can also visit a U SULE; the traditional conical ranch of the Bri Bri and Cabecar Indians, used by the Shamans for cures, acts, and social ceremonies for thousands of years. Around this ranch, you can learn about medicinal plants and how the Shamans used them to cure the ills of their community. As you walk the trails of the CACAO TRAIL TAYKU you will have the opportunity to see poison frogs, giant ants, spiders, and scorpions, as well as howler monkeys, iguanas, sloths, armadillos, and other native species that can be seen quite easily in the top of the trees. At the Organic Banana Farm, you will learn the traditional methods of organic cultivation. You will take a step inside the Historical Monument that celebrates the old Punta Riel train station, where the route of the traditional “Burro Carril” ended, that train that transported cocoa and banana bunches. At the end of this wonderful cultural experience, you will continue the journey to Tortuguero Canal for a boat tour along this ecosystem, where many wildlife species will be easy to see, including sloths, aquatic birds, and with some good luck, monkeys. After all this amazing ecological and cultural experience, return to the pier.