There are several pools along the Río Tarcolitos accessible from the lower trail to the waterfall. The signs at the entrance recommend them for swimming but we knew that despite the remarkably mature and pristine forest in the valley the river drains the watershed below the village of Bijagual. Like any river in Costa Rica with people lacking sanitary sewers living upstream the Tarcolitos is muddied by erosion and full of fecal coliform bacterial.