Thrilling Toro Verde Nature Adventure Park
If you are looking for some extreme adventure on vacation, we found another great place for you — Toro Verde Nature Adventure Park in Orocovis. Does zip lining — either regular (sitting) or laying face down, maneuvering across suspended bridges, climbing up & rappeling down rock walls, and mountain biking sound exciting enough for you?
We did a half day tour of this park and had a blast. Not only was the scenery great, but they make the adventures safe and easy to enjoy.
About the Park
Toro Verde Nature Adventure Park is a large (316 acres) and relatively new ecotourism park, having opened in mid-2010. They designed this park with the best and newest adventure sports. And, they made the courses easy to get to and still manage to keep you in the middle of the beautiful landscape.
They offer five different activities that you can choose from — the Canopy Tour, the Beast, the Wild Bull, Escape If You Can and Mountain Biking. I have been told that you need a couple days to complete them all. But of course, they offer half day and full day packages also.
These tours each have restrictions (height, weight, and age limits), but, for the most part, there is just about something for everyone in the family.
One really nice feature is they drive you to the adventures. Not having a long uphill hike to the starting point makes it much easier for many people who have some issues walking long distances, but who want to experience these adventures. There is some short walking between some of the adventure platforms, but that’s inevitable.
About Our Visit to the Park
We met up with a couple who had never ziplined before and ended up doing a customized mini-course, with some ziplines, some hanging bridges and a rappel. The other couple was afraid of heights, but they did great despite that. It was great to see people stepping outside their comfort zone and trying something thrilling! I am sure they will talk about their experience for many months. We had 2 guides with our tour — one was bilingual, and the other was not.
Canopy Tour — Ziplines
Here is some basic info for those of you who have never gone ziplining before. You wear a harness that goes around each leg and your lower body. It has all sorts of pulleys and carabiners hooked to it that they then use to hook you to the cables. Of course, they use redundant, 2-cable lines here, that’s pretty much the safety standard in the industry. You are equipped with helmet and gloves. They clip you to the lines, you step off the platform and away you go — flying through the air.
They have 8 zip lines in this tour. It might not sound like a lot, but these zip lines go across this huge valley, so they are high up and long.
The zip lines in this course range from 800 feet to 2526 feet long. That is almost a ½ mile long! And the view you get at 600 feet off the ground is breath-taking — or maybe your breath will be taken away by being that far off the ground!
One great feature was a braking system. They had a braking system at the end of the line, so there was no chance of crashing into the platform at the other end.
This course takes about 2 to 3 hours to complete, depending on the size of the group. This tour is offered a couple times a day. This course has an age minimum of 7 years, 4 ft height min and a 270-pound weight limit.
All in all, we have done many zipline courses over the years and this one was outstanding! There is a decent amount of walking required to get to a few of the platforms (a number of steps also).
The Beast (La Bestia)
This zip line is different from all the others. For this one, you are put into a large body harness, and you lay down and get attached to the cables from your back. So you are flying through the air like a bird (or Superman or Ironman). As far as I know, it is the only one of its kind like this in Puerto Rico.
At 4745 feet, it is almost a mile long (one of the longest zip lines in the world) and it is really, really high off the ground (853 feet)! This zip line takes about 2 minutes from end to end, and you are going pretty fast during parts of it — with the wind whipping across your face (hang onto your hats and sunglasses). You have time to really enjoy the scenery. It was really fun, and over way too fast — I could have done that again and again.
This zipline has a minimum weight limit of 110 pounds, and a maximum weight limit of 300 pounds.
For both of these zipline tours, your speed depends on a few things — light-weight people don’t go as fast, or as far. And wind plays a factor in slowing you down, too. If you don’t make it all the way to the end of the zipline (I once stopped about 40 feet from the platform) you can either pull yourself in or they will come and get you. But the heavier people on our tour made it to the end with no problem.
They also now have “The Monster” – one of the longest laying down zipline in the world. We wrote about that here: The Monster
Escape If You Can (Sal Si Puedes)
This has 5 hanging-bridges and 2 ziplines . And don’t expect it to be an easy tree-top walk on a bridge. These are adventure bridges. They swing, move and sway while you are trying to cross them and maintain your balance. Of course, you are clipped on to a safety line, but it still gets your heart pumping as you step from one board to the next.
The bridges cross between the 2 mountains, so they are long and high up — between 200 and 400 feet long and 50 to 130 feet above the ground.
On one of the bridges (Salto del Coqui) there is an assisted rappel/descent from the middle of the bridge. The stepping off the wobbly bridge to hang 130 feet above the ground took quite a bit of courage! You can control how fast you descend by controlling how quickly the rope passes through your gear. After a slow start, I got going pretty quickly. It was really fun.
Participants must be at least 12 years old, have a maximum weight of 270 pounds and be in good physical shape. These bridges require some effort on your part and give you a good upper body workout in the process. We worked up a sweat doing this part of course.
Normally, when we review an activity that is not free to the public, we pay the admission price out of our own pockets. However, we just want you to know that the guys at Toro Verde were kind enough to offer us this trip for free. While we don’t feel that this free ride influenced our review one way or the other, we felt that we should tell you, just as a matter of fact.
The Details
The various courses/tours are priced separately Between $35-$100. They also offer money saving combo packs, so you can do a few of the courses and save some $$. Buying online ahead of time also can save you money as they sometimes have specials posted- check their Facebook page for extra specials.
If you're happy, let them know it — Don't forget to tip your your bartender, tour guide or trip operator if you enjoyed yourself. Gratuities are appreciated and typically aren't included in the price they charge you.
The days and hours that the park is open varies by season. The park is available for large groups and/or team-building activities. Currently open Fri-Sun). Make your reservation online, or call.
Make your reservation online at Toro Verde web site or for more information.
You can call 787-867-7020 or (787) 867- 6606 for more information or to make a reservation. Or you can send an email to reservaciones@toroverdepr.com. They can arrange transportation.
For all tours that allow minors, the minor must be accompanied by a parent or a legal guardian. All participants must be at least 4 feet tall.
Driving directions: From San Juan, take Route 22, to exit #42 towards Morovis (left at the traffic light). This will be Tony Laureano Expressway or Route 137. Continue driving until you reach the fifth light and make a right turn onto Route 155. Follow Route 155 all the way to Orocovis until kilometer 32.9.
It takes about 1 hour to drive from San Juan to Toro Verde in Orocovis.
Click on a placename below to view the location on Google Maps ...
PuertoRicoDayTrips.com assumes no responsibility regarding your safety when participating in the activities described in this article. Please use common sense! If your mother or that little voice in your head tells you that you are about to do something stupid … then don't do it!
