Monteverde, Costa Rica

Post 5 – Monteverde, Costa Rica

Monteverde, about three hours away from La Fortuna, is showing us a new side of the country.  It lies on the western side of central Costa Rica near the Bay of Nicoya (or some call it the Bay of Colorado).  Small pueblos here in the Monteverde area are resort towns that resemble hilly ski or lake resorts in other countries with lots of small hotels, tons of restaurants, and even more gift and coffee shops.  Traffic is a bear in the heart of town.  Known for the cloud forests, this area is where most people come for outdoor adventure activities and the opportunity to explore exotic plants and wildlife in this vast, cloud-covered rainforest mountaintop.  I’m enchanted.

The weather this time of year is unpredictable.  Our first night here was so windy, I thought we might be in a windstorm.  The loud rumbling of loose metal roofing and siding on the older building behind us made it sound like the world was ending. . . all night long.   The next morning was damp and still windy.  By afternoon, the sun shone brightly and the temperature was warm.  At about 5 pm, the breeze picked up, we opened the windows to our casa and the air was heavenly.  By bedtime, it was so cool that windows had to be closed.  We slept so well – there was no ferocious wind that night.   I love it already.

A person could come here for a year-long visit, have coffee in the town and meet interesting people from all over the world every day, take a hike to find beautiful birds, waterfalls, and amazing plant life, plus still have time to sit on a viewing bench with a glass of wine to watch the sunset across the hills over the bay.

Our casa’s hostess booked our reservations for the Wildlife Walk at Curi-Cancha Reserve for our first morning.  The wind was still blowing madly.  We worried that this day might not be the best day to view wildlife.  But it was just fine! 

Our group included 6 others, all from France plus a toddler who was a perfect angel the entire hike.  The French folk all spoke some English and some Spanish . . . we got along splendidly.  Our guide, Jorge, was the best!  This very intelligent young man was personable and obviously loves his job.  His certifications as both a naturalist and guide were enhanced by his enthusiasm and love of nature.  He knew and shared info about plants, their uses, and their role in nature—which ones can be used as an insect repellent and which can be used as toilet tissue.   He pointed out unusual insects and helped us to find birds of all types.  We found and saw with our naked eyes the rarely spied quetzal—not the glorious male but an almost equally beautiful turquoise female.  We found two types of toucan, my favorite.  Jorge said. “Watch for a flying banana.  That’s a toucan.”  But we found out sitting in a tree eating fruit.  We hiked past a coiled green Side-Striped Palm Pit Viper.  Jorge says he’s been coiled in the same twigs for the past week.  There were hummingbirds galore, tiny ones with white spotted tails and larger dark iridescent black-green ones with red tails. 

We had such an interesting time on this three-hour trek, and during the walk, we became very fond of Dominique and his wife whose name, I am sorry to say, escapes me right now.  A former tour guide herself, when our first quetzal was sighted, this lady held my shoulders and pointed noon position and held me there to make sure I got to see the bird with my own eyes, ensuring I’d get the seven years of good luck allegedly promised by the indigenous people when the rare quetzal is sighted.  Thank you, Merci, madame!  After our hike and before we parted ways, I gave her my contact info and my blog info.  I do expect to hear from her and who knows, we will probably meet again or visit them in the Basque Country of Spain someday.

Day two was strictly on our own.  We had done some exploring by car yesterday.  Stan has an uncanny sense of direction and photographic memory of roads, places, intersections, and interesting buildings.  One trip through the town and all roads leading out yesterday gave him his mental map of the area. There is so much I love about this man!   In our years of traveling, we’ve done all the adventure outings like zipline, para-gliding, white water rafting, tubing, and ATV trips.  Those commercialized adventures no longer appeal to us. 

We remembered seeing a sign for the Catarata Monteverde Waterfall as we drove around yesterday.  We walked there from our casa.  Stan knew here it was; it wasn’t far.  We paid our $7 per person and walked through the forest 20 minutes downhill to the falls.  It was solitary, majestic, and well worth the walk.  Kelly, the young lady who took our money for tickets was nice and friendly.  After our long, steep uphill, hard-breathing trip out,  we stopped to chat with her again and ask about her recommendations for special things we might do and see here.  Always, always, our best information comes from people who live in the area or other travelers – not TripAdvisor, not Viator, not GetYourGuide, and sometimes not others’ blogs or upscale exploring organizations.

Kelly thought for a moment, asked us about our interests, and ended up recommending the Bosque Eterno De Los Ninos (Children’s Eternal Rainforest) and the Reserva Bajo Del Tigre trails.  Just up the road another 200 meters, we headed that way.  We photographed the trail map and paid our entry fees and started walking our second hike of the day.  This trek combined several trails and was only about 2 miles in total length but the trails were sometimes up and down very steep hills especially on the portion completing the loop.  While we stopped periodically to listen for animals, take photos of birds, watch a random agouti, and chat with a couple from Colorado, the only people we saw in the whole forest, the hike took a good two hours.

By the time we finished the entire trail, we were tired and starving.  Following another of Kelly’s recommendations, we stopped at CASEM Co-op for homemade casadas cooked over a wood-fired stove.  The food was for sure delicious and the wood fire lent a rustic flavor to the food making this a nice change to the other traditional cookeries we’ve tried.  But moreover, it was nice to support a non-profit crafts cooperative dedicated to enhancing the economic and social well-being of local women artists.

All in all, we walked and hiked just over five miles today but the uphill portions equated to 45 floors of stairs.  I think we will sleep well again tonight.  We tell each other this stuff is good for us.  What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

Day three: The couple we met yesterday on the Los Ninos hike suggested we do the Coffee Experience at Santuario Ecologico, a 46-acre non-profit preserve.  That became our plan for today.  Only about an eleven-minute walk from our casa, we found that the coffee experience was conducted only twice per day, 8:30 aim and 1:30 pm, but today’s afternoon session is 2:30 pm.  Too late in the day for us. We signed up for the 8:30 am session tomorrow morning after which we will start our drive to our next location, Venado in the Tamarindo region.  For our $45 entry per person, we got both the coffee experience and entrance to the hiking trails.  We decided to go ahead and hike the trails of the Santuario today. 

The day was windy with clear skies.  It was already 11 am when we started the hike.  We knew our chances of spotting wildlife would be slim but decided to do the hikes anyway.  We like to hunt animals but only for photos or simple sightings.  But we aren’t real hunters; otherwise, we’d be up before dawn to be out there for the “first chew” as our friend Outlaw used to say when going snapper fishing in the Gulf.  He’d say, “We are leaving at 4 am.  You gotta be ready to catch ‘em during the first chew.”  These days, Stan and I are retired!!!  Do you think we are going to set an alarm to get up before dawn for fun????  Think again, my friend.

The hike was pretty – it’s always pretty in the forest and even prettier in the rainforest.  I get a thrill out of finding colorful pink and blue lichen on trees, twisted trunks and vines or big disc-shaped wooden fungus growths on fence posts or trees.  We love the unusual wildflowers and peculiar “acorn-like nuts” that fall from the trees.  All of nature is a spectacle if one merely stops to take a look.  We saw some pretty butterflies, an agouti, saw two coatis cross our path, and heard them snarl and scream as they fought in the bushes.  Only one came back out . . . the loser, we think.  We walked several of the trails stopping often to listen and look for birds or to take photos of the wide vistas from the miradors.  Down 100 dirt steps took us to the “water drop” where found a small but very secluded and peaceful waterfall.  Every 100 steps downhill mean 100 return steps up.  Finishing the 100 steps, we were sweating but had to finish the hike and walk home yet.

After a very nice lunch in town, we are settling in for the rest of the afternoon to do laundry, re-pack, and prepare for our journey . . . and coffee experience in the morning. Yes, even weary world adventurers have to do chores.

We really like Monteverde and thoroughly enjoyed our stay here.  I wish we could stay longer.