Road Trip - Monteverde Region

Wednesday morning, off to Santa Elena. The first half of the road trip was on paved roads and went quite fast. The landscape changed slowly from semi-dry land to lush hills. Along the way, we did notice that Costa Rica seems to be doing well with renewable energy: two big hydroelectric plants and one wind farm… Pretty cool.
Once we hit the town of Tilaran, the road took a turn for the worse: the last 30 km to Santa Elena and the Monteverde area was a rough dirt, mud, and rock road winding around the hills… definitely, the 4x4 wasn’t superfluous! By the end of it, Paul’s mood had taken a turn for the worse as well because of the stress of driving in such conditions… but I must say, the passenger did get an awesome view though! The landscape reminded me a lot of New Zealand with rolling green hills spotted with cows and horses, and lush forests; it was really stunning.
By the time we got to Santa Elena, we were in the clouds and in the rain (expectable from a cloud forest region). In contrast to the very sparsely populated hills we had just passed, Santa Elena was a surprisingly busy little tourist town. That many people would be interested in doing rainy ecotourism??
So the next morning we set out to see what all the buzz was about. In order to avoid the crowds, we went to the Santa Elena reserve instead of the more popular Monteverde Reserve. When we arrived, we were virtually alone. We rented rubber boots and set out into the forest.


In addition to the cloudy/rainy weather, what sets cloud forests apart is the epiphytes - plants that grow on other plants and trees but not as parasites, like moss and orchids - that strive there because of all the water present in the clouds. The result is stunning, magnificent, unreal!... It is like the perfection of the enchanted or haunted forest from children's books...


Everything about it is both eerie and wondrous somehow... each tree is entirely covered in mosses, orchids, ferns etc. which also grow on top of each other, and the mist gives the whole scene a supernatural glow.

Plenty of wildlife - met a pig on the trail

To complete the picture, even the bird songs have a strange metallic tonality. Really amazing.

...find Paul...