:: TREE TOP OBSERVATION

A growing number of tours let visitors explore the rain forest canopy’s high-altitude ecosystems, a luxuriant and little-known realm that is home to most of the jungle's plant and animal species.

Ecologists started only two decades ago to seriously study these high-altitudes, using sophisticated devices as mountain climbing equipment and construction cranes, that tourists now have the chance to use to cross the biological frontier.

PANORAMIC VIEW

Those chances include from boarding an aerial tram that goes through the tree tops of a tropical forest, over 100 feet above the jungle floor.

All those tours offer a monkey's-eye view of the rain forest canopy, where thick branches serve as platforms, and an incredible diversity of smaller plants, and such animals as tree frogs, vine snakes, sloths, and hundreds of bird species can be seen.

FOR INTREPIDS

Adventurous travelers may want to try one of the more rustic canopy tours, which entail strapping on a mountain climbing harness and pulling yourself along suspended cables to a series of small wooden platforms built in the tops of trees.

Several private biological reserves also have platforms in the canopies of large trees, where people are hoisted up to. One private reserve even has a small hotel room built in the top of a tree, for those who want to spend a night in the canopy.