Monte Verde Cloud Forest
Exotic Birds in the Clouds
I did not get my exercise Saturday morning, as the early part of the day was spent getting back to Playas del Coco and checking out of our room. After breakfast, we climbed back into the gutless little Jimmy and started toward the higher altitudes of the Central Highlands. The first part of the drive hardly felt like a spin through Latin America. We began by back tracking down a highway that resembled the quality of an American interstate. Eventually, though, we turned off onto a gradually deteriorating road that looked more like something you’d see in Guatemala or Nicaragua. Initially, it was a narrow, paved two-laner with switchbacks and slowdowns for villages. Then came the potholes, and eventually the road was a rutted gravel track. Heavily laden, cluttered trucks crept up the road even slower than we were driving. There was no use in trying to pass. You could not see far enough to get a clear path by, the road was likely to be too rough to speed up, and the trip was just going to be slow, anyhow, so why buck the trend?
As we drove along, I listened to the local radio stations. They played an odd mix of easy listening and “oldie” type music, interspersed with Spanish language advertisements. One of the creeping trucks had a pre-teen girl standing on the bed, balancing – the kind of thing you would have thought nothing about seeing in America forty years ago, but nowadays shocks your sense of safety. I watched her leaning into the turns, looking perfectly comfortable. The truck was not going all that fast. She was unlikely to take a tumble. She was having fun, and I was enjoying watching her in her element as the song, “Brown Girl in the Ring” played on the radio. The song seemed appropriate, and the scene made the slow trip pleasant.
We finally arrived at our motel in the community of Santa Elena. Santa Elena is kind of strung out along the road. I was nervous that our room did not have air conditioning after spending a warm night on the Guanacaste coast. Our hosts assured me that there was no need for air conditioning. We could just open the windows. Upon arrival, it was clear this was true. The temperatures at altitude often did not top 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Leaving windows and doors open actually resulted in a slight chill.
(Continued)














Despite the slow drive up the hill, we arrived in Santa Elena early enough to do some activities Saturday afternoon. We decided to visit a butterfly farm. Our host was a very “natural” looking young lady with a nose ring, who went by the moniker, “H.” I was a bit skeptical at first, perhaps expecting some kind of environmentalist lecture. It turned out she was a complete expert on all things insect. She enthusiastically led us through rooms full of interesting insects highlighting beetles, walking sticks, and other insects and plants native to the highlands of Central America. The tour culminated with several rooms of amazingly colorful butterflies which we even got to feed. They sometimes lighted on us, flying all around, displaying their blues, greens and oranges. Some butterflies even had a pattern that looked like a reptile eye on their wings to deter predators. Stephanie’s favorite part of all this was that she was allowed to release a butterfly that had just emerged from chrysalis into the wild. The whole thing was a delightful experience. The facility even boasted wonderful views out toward the ocean in the distance.
We enjoyed a fine dinner, then joined a night hike looking for the nocturnal animals. We saw a few interesting insects and frogs, but not much else. Some of our tour-mates were quite excited about each tiny frog and insect, but to be frank, we saw nothing that was particularly rare or even unusual. The guide did his best, we just didn’t come across a lot of interesting critters. It was a nice evening walk, but that’s about all. We headed to our room for the night. We closed out the evening by closing the windows so it didn’t get too cold.
We could not find an Iglesia de Cristo anywhere within a two to three hour drive, and thus concluded we would miss public worship that day. We began our daily activities with a plantation tour. We visited a small farm where they grew some coffee, cacao, and cane sugar. I think Stephanie was most interested in seeing the coffee production. I thought seeing the chocolate would be interesting. I didn’t think highlands were the environment for sugar cane. It turns out, it wasn’t really cacao country, either, but they grew some of both of these plants to enhance the tour. Costa Rican coffee, however, is pretty highly thought of. There are a couple of different major varieties of coffee, and the superior type comes from high country, such as they have in Colombia and the higher spine of Central America. They had both varieties of plants. This was also the case on my later trip to Guatemala.
I was assigned the duty of squeezing the liquid out of the sugar cane from which the sugar could be extracted. We used older, less automated mechanisms for this. The process was fairly straightforward. It was a little surprising, however, to learn that the chocolate came from a gourd-like fruit that was slimy inside. The slimy beans inside were left to ferment, then dried and roasted. After the roasting, a hull is removed, and the “meat” is extracted in the form of powder or cocoa butter. A cocoa liquor is formed, which becomes baking chocolate after it cools. We tasted the chocolate several times as it is edible throughout the process. Of course, Stephanie took home some special coffee as a souvenir.
We spent the afternoon walking through the Monte Verde cloud forest park. Although I am not the bird aficionado Andrew was when he was a bit younger, I had one special audubon project I wanted to accomplish while in Costa Rica. I especially wanted to see a quetzal. We hired a guide to help us find one. We walked around through the park with him for a couple of hours. He was not the most independently sharp guide we have ever had. He struggled to find any animals on his own. He did occasionally tap into the tour guide network to learn the locations of a few birds and monkeys. He also showed us the physical geography of the park, which was interesting. His English was not a proficient English speaker, either, which made it difficult for him to communicate in a way Stephanie would also understand.
(Continued)












Despite the slow drive up the hill, we arrived in Santa Elena early enough to do some activities Saturday afternoon. We decided to visit a butterfly farm. Our host was a very “natural” looking young lady with a nose ring, who went by the moniker, “H.” I was a bit skeptical at first, perhaps expecting some kind of environmentalist lecture. It turned out she was a complete expert on all things insect. She enthusiastically led us through rooms full of interesting insects highlighting beetles, walking sticks, and other insects and plants native to the highlands of Central America. The tour culminated with several rooms of amazingly colorful butterflies which we even got to feed. They sometimes lighted on us, flying all around, displaying their blues, greens and oranges. Some butterflies even had a pattern that looked like a reptile eye on their wings to deter predators. Stephanie’s favorite part of all this was that she was allowed to release a butterfly that had just emerged from chrysalis into the wild. The whole thing was a delightful experience. The facility even boasted wonderful views out toward the ocean in the distance.
We enjoyed a fine dinner, then joined a night hike looking for the nocturnal animals. We saw a few interesting insects and frogs, but not much else. Some of our tour-mates were quite excited about each tiny frog and insect, but to be frank, we saw nothing that was particularly rare or even unusual. The guide did his best, we just didn’t come across a lot of interesting critters. It was a nice evening walk, but that’s about all. We headed to our room for the night. We closed out the evening by closing the windows so it didn’t get too cold.
We could not find an Iglesia de Cristo anywhere within a two to three hour drive, and thus concluded we would miss public worship that day. We began our daily activities with a plantation tour. We visited a small farm where they grew some coffee, cacao, and cane sugar. I think Stephanie was most interested in seeing the coffee production. I thought seeing the chocolate would be interesting. I didn’t think highlands were the environment for sugar cane. It turns out, it wasn’t really cacao country, either, but they grew some of both of these plants to enhance the tour. Costa Rican coffee, however, is pretty highly thought of. There are a couple of different major varieties of coffee, and the superior type comes from high country, such as they have in Colombia and the higher spine of Central America. They had both varieties of plants. This was also the case on my later trip to Guatemala.
I was assigned the duty of squeezing the liquid out of the sugar cane from which the sugar could be extracted. We used older, less automated mechanisms for this. The process was fairly straightforward. It was a little surprising, however, to learn that the chocolate came from a gourd-like fruit that was slimy inside. The slimy beans inside were left to ferment, then dried and roasted. After the roasting, a hull is removed, and the “meat” is extracted in the form of powder or cocoa butter. A cocoa liquor is formed, which becomes baking chocolate after it cools. We tasted the chocolate several times as it is edible throughout the process. Of course, Stephanie took home some special coffee as a souvenir.
We spent the afternoon walking through the Monte Verde cloud forest park. Although I am not the bird aficionado Andrew was when he was a bit younger, I had one special audubon project I wanted to accomplish while in Costa Rica. I especially wanted to see a quetzal. We hired a guide to help us find one. We walked around through the park with him for a couple of hours. He was not the most independently sharp guide we have ever had. He struggled to find any animals on his own. He did occasionally tap into the tour guide network to learn the locations of a few birds and monkeys. He also showed us the physical geography of the park, which was interesting. His English was not a proficient English speaker, either, which made it difficult for him to communicate in a way Stephanie would also understand.















