This is an opportunity to experience hiking at Cahuita National Park and snorkeling in the sparkling Caribbean combined in one tour. The national park is in the La Amistad Conservation Area which is on Costa Rica’s southernmost Caribbean coastline. It was established in 1982 in order to protect the rain forests, beaches, coral reefs, and their inhabitants. This is a tour that you will likely remember as this area has a diverse assortment of life in Central America.
The adventure begins with snorkeling at Cahuita National Park. The day starts with transportation from your hotel in Cahuita or Puerto Viejo and includes a bilingual guide who will escort you into the park. You will board a 12 person boat captained by a professional who will take you to the prime areas of the 600 acre coral reef around the park. Since the area is protected, this is the only way anyone can experience snorkeling here. Weather permitting, you can see over 35 coral species, many crustaceans, as well as hundreds of fish species, and shellfish. The tour includes all snorkeling equipment: mask, fins, and breathing tube. Lunch will also be provided for your group. This is approximately a 2 hour adventure that can offer you a lifetime of memories.
The second part of this tour is a hike through the National Park. This particular area is home to many rare and endangered species of animals including all the cats of Central America, the Ornate Spider Monkey, and Tapir. Your naturalist guide will point out any sloths, monkeys, iguanas, butterflies, and other wildlife living in the area. You will see rivers that have carved spectacular waterfalls into the mountainous landscapes. Your guide will take you to the best areas for photographs.
Come prepared to maximize this experience with your camera, binoculars, completely enclosed walking shoes, insect repellent, sunblock, rain gear, drinking water and snacks. You will want to have dry clothes to change into after snorkeling in your bathing suit.
This snorkeling and hiking tour includes a professional guide, transportation from Cahuita or Puerto Viejo, entrance to the park, and lunch. One way transportation to the park will take at least 15 minutes from the village of Cahuita, and up to 1 hour from Puerto Viejo. Combined time of tour, lunch and round trip transportation can take up to 8 hours. If the weather negatively affects the visibility underwater, the snorkeling portion of the tour may be canceled, and you will be refunded $10. The best months for the snorkeling tour are March, April, May, August, September, or October.
The Cahuita National Park and Snorkeling Combo is available from Cahuita, Puerto Viejo, and Punta Uva
Latitude: N 9° 44' 22.24"
Longitude: W 82° 49' 20.98"
10/09/2024
The snorkeling was our favorite part! Amazing!
10/02/2024
You don't need hiking shoes - flip flops are fine. You also need to bring a towel. Our guide Alex was FANTASTIC!!!
10/27/2022
Excellent tour guide. Very interested in educating us and satisfying our curiosity about nature. Fluent English speaker. Patient and pleasant.
01/19/2022
Guide did not speak a lot of English and did not seem that informed on the walk. On the drive to the tour the assistant to the driver only spoke Spanish to the Spanish speaking tourists. Did not converse with us although he spoke English
10/22/2021
The walking tour was over two hours in wet clothes. There was no where to change.
09/14/2021
Rodolfo was great; the visibility was not very good for snorkeling but the hike was excellent
09/12/2021
Saw hardly any fish. The coral was dead which I think impacts the amount of see animals that you can see. The visibility was ok.
09/10/2021
Excellent guide!
02/23/2020
We were unable to snorkel, which was why we booked the tour, but to be fair you can't control water clarity. The guide knew his area and did a good job despite some people on the tour who had their own agenda. I thought they were rude to the guide and thoughtless to the rest of us on the tour.
11/03/2019
It was a fantastic day. The guides were informative and professional.
10/19/2019
We enjoyed this activity but have a few comments. The communication wasn't great from the start. I suggest mentioning in the description that the snorkling part comes first and the hike second. We think that the group of snorklers was too big. People kept running into each other and if you weren't in the front of the group when something cool was spotted then you didn't get to see it at all because it would be scared off by the time you got there. For the hiking part, we really enjoyed the English guide Alex but the Spanish guide kept stopping for unnecessary photo spots and when we came across a vine snake he picked it up by the tail to show people. That's absolutely not okay. All of our other guides and tours urge people to be to solution, not the problem, and to respect the animals and their homes. This guide didn't abide by that. Overall though we did enjoy the activity, but there were things that could be improved.
10/14/2019
Snorkeling was enjoyable! The hike was nice nature hike but unfortunately we saw way more wildlife around our hotel than in the park. Hiking shoes were not needed (people were barefoot or in water shoes). The guide was anecdotally knowledgable but not as much scientifically knowledgable about the various flora/fauna species.
10/13/2019
Tour started early morning and we were given one small bottle of water. Then lunch was not until 3:30 pm. Way too long for 12 oz of water to last
09/15/2019
This was my first time snorkeling and it was amazing. I lost the guide a few times in the water because there were so many different groups, which made me nervous, but it was totally fine. It rained during the hike, which I actually really liked, as I had rain gear, and it made the experience different and more interesting. Just wish I was able to see more wildlife in both the snorkeling and hike.
08/23/2019
Very good guide however snorkelling was a waste of time as visibility was too low.
08/06/2019
What an incredible day! Rodolfo, our guide from Cahuita Tours, was my favorite tour guide. Enthusiastic about all aspects of the regions nature, he skillfully showed us everything from sharks, manta rays, lion fish, and brain coral, to Capuchin monkeys, and indigenous plants and their medicinal properties. The snorkeling gear and boat ride were all great. The fresh pineapple with limon and salt was super refreshing. Lunch was delicious as well. Thanks, Rodolfo!
07/25/2019
The guide tried to do his best but the visibility in water was terrible. We couldn’t do the walk because of bad weather. But we loved our guide, he was very helpful and tried his best.
07/05/2019
The tour was great. We didn't get to snorkel because of weather conditions but instead we went on a boat tour. The guide was very good.
06/10/2019
AS we were off season, the water was a little murky with snorkeling but we saw a shark and an octopus. Alex could have introduced himself
04/30/2019
Snorkeling was cancelled due to weather. This was disappointing, but understandable due to safety etc. Staff was great at explaining "why" and giving an alternative. A longer boat ride would be appreciated!
02/12/2019
we did not go as we had found the jungle tours to be not that rewarding and the snorkeling was cancelled due to weather. I think 3 jungle tours is 1 too many
01/26/2019
The guide, Rodolfo, was excellent. He was able to spot lots of wildlife for us. We were not able to snorkel due to conditions being unfavorable. We had to wait an extra 45 minutes after eating to be transported back.
11/16/2018
The snorkeling combo did not happen due to weather, but we saw a lot of wildlife in the park.
11/01/2018
snorkling is not great although the visibility was good, there was not much to see. The guide was nice but his english was rather poor so we didn't understand him fully. The walk back along the beach was very nice
10/14/2018
An awesome first day in Costa Rica. Rudolfo was an excellent guide through the park. He was so knowledgeable and I learned a lot about the plants, animals and culture of Limon. He had an incredible eye for spotting animal life. I saw sloths, monkeys, iguanas and during the snorkling portion, we swam with a reef shark!
10/13/2018
Alex was extremely knowledgeable about the park and all its inhabitants. Carlos and Alex found great snorkeling spots, were funny, and extremely personable.
09/25/2018
Antonio our guide was great. We enjoyed the snorkeling, the hike was very easy.
09/10/2018
Great guide (Eder) who provided snorkeling instruction and was our guide for the hike. Very friendly. Pickup was on time.
09/08/2018
nice experience.
09/04/2018
Tour guides were great and extremely helpful.
11/03/2017
Guide was excellent. We saw lots of wildlife.
10/24/2017
We had a great hike, unfortunately due to the weather conditions we couldn't snorkel so we were given a meal instead. The walk was stunning and we saw a lot of wildlife here
08/31/2017
Tourists should be advised that a donation is requested (not required) by the CNP Personnel, even for the pre-paid group tours. We were embarrassed that we didn't bring any cash because we were unaware of this 'opportunity'.
08/15/2017
Cancelled because of storm. Went to Bribri village, very good experience.
08/08/2017
All good. Enjoyed the snorkelling. Walk was very informative with knowledgable guide.
01/23/2017
Snorkeling was great fun...did not have enough lotion on so got burned....and coral reefs in trouble. Walk through the jungle with guide was great....only 3 of us plus guide.
10/31/2016
Guide was OK, but not great. Reef a bit underwhelming -- but still enjoyable!
10/04/2016
We couldn't go hiking / snorkeling because of waves / no swim warnings. The native village tour we did instead was excellent though (10). Our guide was knowledgable and we saw and did lots of interesting things.
09/11/2016
Nice tour !! I didn't liked the tour company (too commercial), but the guide, Rudolf, was the max. He was very good and he was so passionated. We had so much fun with him. My target was surching a snake and he found 2 pieces.
04/05/2016
The hike through the jungle with our guide Alex was fantastic. The snorkelling wasn't as good as we'd hoped but that was only because the sea wasn't quite right so everything was a bit murky.
04/04/2016
Color of coral was not very good
03/01/2016
Weather unfit for snorkelling. Excellent logistics...received a call from tour operator to my hotel room to arrange alternative tour. We enjoyed our trip to Tree of Life Rescue Centre. Our guide for the day, Adam ..excellent.
02/13/2016
This one was replaced due to all of the weather. The replacement was very good!!
11/15/2015
Was cancelled due to weather. Went on Bri Bri cultural tour including iguana farm and chocolate making. Better than I expected. Two of us later went on the hiking tour in Cahuita National Park on one of our free days.
06/24/2015
Got rained out!! Very disappointed. But I did go hiking on my own at the Cahuita NP and it was great.
02/17/2015
We had an alternate tour because runoff had clouded the ocean. Our hike was abbreviated because of needing to wade a stream, which we would have gladly waded. Was great to talk with Eduaro, learn some of the history.