Monteverde

Monteverde reserve is one of only a few areas of cloudforest in the world and is rightly protected. Unfortunately the surrounding area - the towns of Monteverde and Santa Elena are not and development is rampant. It's hard to come somewhere like Monteverde and not feel like part of the problem. It's an odd situation in a way because some locals welcome the development and others oppose it - for instance we spoke to a taxi driver on our way back from the cloud forest one night and he said that where there was once a beautiful forest they were now planning to build a shopping mall. The trees had all been cut down and the land flattened. The upside for the local community is that they get new tourist facilities which will encourage more people to visit and they get easier access to more western comforts and increased employment opportunities. It's sad to think that the more tourists who show up, the more land will have to be cleared to house and feed them. The character of the place is already being worn away but it's hard to preach when they're just following our example.


While the situation in the town is problematic, there's no doubting that the main attraction - the Monteverde reserve is an amazing place. Even in the short times we were there (we did a day and a night tour) we saw many different insects and spiders - including a red-kneed tarantula - as well as frogs, millipedes, howler monkeys and even a sloth. Some of the insects had evolved some pretty impressive disguises. There were stick insects, moths that looked like leaves, moths with fake 'eye' pattern in their wings and many others. We didn't manage to spot a Quetzal but then if it were easy then it wouldn't be special if we did see one.


The hairy carpet man in this picture is a sloth. This was taken through our guide's telescope.

In between visits to the reserve we had another go on some zip lines. Canopy tours are practically synonymous with Costa Rice - so we couldn't leave the country without giving it a go. We went in a group of about 16 (far too many) and while there were 3 or 4 good long lines, there were a few 20-30 metre lines that were hardly worth the effort. One good part though was the 'Tarzan Swing' - basically a miniature version of the 'Canyon Swing' that Trace enjoyed in New Zealand. Unfortunately it wasn't miniature enough for me so I decided to skip it. A good time was had by all though and while it wasn't exactly a life changing experience, it was pretty good.

We spent another couple of days in Monteverde doing not very much - the rain can be pretty heavy and constant up there - so that kinda put a bit of a damper on things, but we had a great time nonetheless and woke up early on Friday for the inevitable trip back to San Jose.