The full Monte

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Leaving La Fortuna and its cloudy volcano behind us we took to the dirt roads in our private transport (well parents need comfort) in search of our next stop about 1700m above sea level in Santa Elena. Like La Fortuna the once sleepy farming community of Santa Elena was now a honey-pot-site for any tourist or wildlife enthusiast who ventures into Costa Rica. The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve is the jewel in the crown of the Santa Elena locale. Along with this king of nature reserves the line up of potential attractions seemed more than adequate to keep us busy during our five night stay. The options were so plentiful that after the lodge staff where we were staying had given us the full run down it necessitated a group meeting of the six of us to wade through the potential permutations to our itinerary.

On our first full day we had teed up a cloud forest reserve warm up in Santa Elena, Monteverde’s little sister. Despite our previous experience in Panama in this wildlife-tastic ecosystem we managed to deeply under whelm our parents with our wildlife spotting abilities by seeing absolutely zip. We’d even gotten up super early to be the first ones to step into the reserve that day but the fickle world of wildlife spotting had dealt us a cruel blow. It took a few days of rebuilding our cloud forest confidence before we decided to take on Monteverde. After honing our nature skills in the Frog ranerium, butterfly house, hanging bridge walk and of course the most plentiful wildlife spotting place right outside our accommodation we felt ready. With the wildlife-we-have-seen list now looking respectable we booked our trip to the star attraction. We had however agreed that we would not go without reinforcements. They came in the shape of Adrian our smooth talking, optic laden and tourist pleasing Guide.

We had a successful skirmish through Monteverde that morning between Adrian’s keen eyes and tuned ears plus the Guides bush telegraph that rumbled around the forest telling them when any of the main attractions were spotted. But it did feel at times it more bun-fight than quiet forest exploration. The benefit was that it did makes us realise that the real excitement of discovering nature is through developing your own knowledge and ability and then going out and revealing it in all its splendour for yourself. The thrill was somewhat coloured when a pro like Adrian can just seemingly queue it all up for you so you don’t have to make any particular effort other than crocking your neck to look through his telescope.

Overall, Costa Rica was delivering the people were welcoming and provided us with the really well managed and enjoyable stay that we’d hoped for. Most importantly the parents were happy and although we were still struggling to hide our grimaces at the price of thing so were we.

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