• Bijagual waterfallThe fall is the visit, down a steep trail and back up the same way. Go at opening. After hard rain the path is mud and the canyon is louder.
  • Pools on the way backThe river pools are the swim, after the viewpoint, not before the climb. The rock is slick. Do not treat them like the beach at Jacó.
  • HorsebackIf the trail is too steep to walk, the horses use the same farm road. Ask that morning. It is still a wet forest, not a beach ride.
  • Carara National ParkMacaws and flat forest are a different morning, down toward the highway. Do not add the park after the waterfall. You will be climbing out in the heat.
  • JacóThe beach town is the groceries, the lesson, and the night. Sleep up here if you want quiet, and go down only when you need the sand.
  • HerraduraThe bay and the marina are the other direction, a short drive if the waterfall is closed or the rain has started. It is not a second hike.
  • The villageA soda and a few houses are the town. Use them for lunch after the trail. There is not a strip of shops.
  • Tarcolitos riverThe river feeds the fall. Walk the bank if the trail is shut. Do not swim where the current is pushing.

The landscape is rainforest canyon, a river, and pasture on the road up from the coast. You are likely to see scarlet macaws, howler monkeys, white-faced capuchins, toucans, morpho butterflies and frogs. The plants around them are rainforest, ferns, heliconia and moss on the rock.

Around Bijagual, macaws are more often on the drive toward Carara than at the fall itself. Monkeys are on the trail at opening. The soda is not the forest.

The fall is on private forest beside Carara National Park.

In Bijagual, stay on the trail and do not feed what you came to see. The pools are not a place to stand on the rock when the river is up.

The climate is tropical wet, a little cooler than the beach. Temperatures are about 23–30°C. Rain is heaviest from May to November. Mornings are the usable hours. Bijagual sits in the hills above the coast, about 300 m (980 ft).

If the trail is mud, that is the rain, not a reason to start at noon. The countrywide calendar is in the best time to visit Costa Rica.

Most people start at Juan Santamaría in Alajuela, drive to Jacó, then turn inland. The last stretch is slower and rougher than the highway.

Arrive in daylight if you do not know the road. Buses, shuttles, and rental cars are compared in getting around Costa Rica.