Monteverde Cloud Forest and Volcanoes at Ricon de le Vieja and recollections 8 years on

I took an early morning taxi to San Jose for a bus to the privately owned Monteverde Reserve which lies to the east of, and feeds, the Rio Penas Blancas where we had been working for the past 2 months.  So, although nearby and a bit expensive, a visit was recommended to see the higher elevation forest and another opportunity to mix with English speaking researchers – visitors.  A quick journey along the Intra American Highway only to slow down for the last 18km to grinding lower gears for 2 hours up steep, twisting, almost single track dirt road through the Cordillera De Tilaran to Santa Elena village and a taxi 6km further to the Reserve.  Some of the drops to the valleys below were mind blowingly steep and the bus seemed to run along the edge where there were no barriers, just confidence in the driver!

Monteverde village is scattered along a dirt road which despìte the huge influx of tourists and commercial development in the area still seems quiet and a bit timeless.  I did see farmers trudge along the dirt road in rubber boots but no quaint milk cans at farm driveways.  It is a Quaker settlement with a cheese factory as its good dairy country, a Friends Meeting House, school etc.

Its a very popular Reserve and I was lucky to get a last minute booking at their main Field Station.  The staff were friendly but with my basic Spanish and sign language there was some uncertainty on my booking until a couple of other staff turned up who spoke some English. I surprisingly had a 6 bed dorm all to myself and shared bathroom facilities which were good.  The other visitors were students from Illinois University on a 2 week field trip to Costa Rica and I found similar groups in the next 2 weeks.  I was fortunate again to meet very friendly folk whereby some staff and a MSc student invited me to join them for some of their work on bats and looking for frogs at night. Re-reading this account brings back good memories 8 years on.

I went out on my own at dawn and in the afternoons for several walks along concrete mat trails and dirt tracks with the more distant and longer ones being more natural and less used.  The aim is to try and protect the ground as there are zillions of foot passage.  As most visitors appear between about 8am and 1pm before the rains come in, I was often ambling about to all purposes on my own not hearing or seeing others…so brave!

The Reserve Guide was superb and bilingual!  I can do some flora and fauna in latin and spanish but not more complex ecology!   Although Monteverde is famous as cloud forest, the clouds are becoming less frequent at the lower elevations and lasting for shorter periods. This has become more noticeable in the last 10 to 15 years and an indicator of climate change? One species of frog has very probably disappeared due they think to changes in temperature and humidity and amphibians are excellent indicators of environmental conditions and they are in big trouble worldwide.

Monteverde covers 105km2 with 6 different eco communities, 2500 species of plants, over 100 species of mammals, 490 species of butterflies and over 400 species of birds including the respendant quetzal.  It is dense, low lit and when the cloud rolls in, quite gloomy or atmospheric especially when I was on my own and one hears occasional low grunts of howler monkeys through the swirling canopy.  Due to the cloud I only saw part of the rolling green vistas of uninterrupted forest but still impressive, although only to know that round the corner the slopes are cleared for coffee or cattle so a landscape mix of greens and red soils with sharp erosion gashes.

We saw a female and male quetzal guarding their nest of a hole in an old tree trunk. One bird guards whilst the other goes off for food.  Others were seen and I found some on my own too. Saw a variety of colourful and more drab brown birds such as hummingbirds, violet sabrewing, green-crowned brilliant and stripe tailed and a nest which is made low down in a bush as an anti predator measure,  orange bellied trogon, gray-throated leaftosser with a nest in an earthbank, black guan which makes a loud rattle from its wings and toucans.  Tons of thick mosses, epiphytes, bromeliads hanging on and from trees plus various insects such as rhinocerous and long horned beetles which do look as their names suggest and a tarantula in its hole in a bank. I suspect that all the guides take their groups to see the same tarantula, nest etc but they still seem to stay in residence so tolerant to disturbance?!  The University tutors put up a couple of mist nets and we saw nectar feeding bats come into the artificial feeders for the hummingbirds and drawing the sugary water with their long tongues.

I was ripped off in Santa Elena on a supposed tree bridge walk which was pathetic in terms of the length and so called canopy height of the foot bridges and hammered with rain so sheltered for an hour under a tin toof shelter until a guide came and found me saying the thunder and lightning  was dangerous. I got drenched.  There was one bus a day out to Juntas and IA Highway at 3pm, friendly locals with shopping, kids and farmers.  Had a 5 minute wait at IA for a bus north to Liberia and chatted to friendly CR guy who works in tourism and keen to converse in English. I found requests for Spanish were often short lived as the wish to hear English from a British person was in high demand.

I got to Liberia in the dark at about 7pm in the rain and not obvious where the town was in relation to the station so asked in a shop who were fab and again between our spanish, drawings and he came and found me on a push bike too!..I got directions to the budget Posada de la Tope.  Guanacaste Province is the NW are of CR and distinctly different in culture and landscape. Most of the tropical dry forest has gone and there are wide flat expanses from the Pacific ocean to the volcanoes of savanna grasses for cattle ranching with affluent and poorer farmsteads, scattered trees and sluggish rivers.  Farmers in wide hats ride the horses for cattle work and getting around. In 1842 a very close vote made the area part of CR and not Nicaragua. Liberia has a 19th century colonial feel of wide streets and white washed houses and Calle Central with the Posada had such houses with faded paint, whole wall covered in newspaper clippings of bullfights, cowboys and senoritas etc with iron railings and an old sofa outside the door on the broken pavement next to the open drain. I recall quite well years on, the distinct ambience of a place lolling away time in the heat.

My room was basic with no windows, single bed, 4 coat hangers and a fan, peeling blue and orange paint, cracked tile floor, 2 shared bathrooms where the toilet leaked clean water and only one handbasin worked but it was OK and friendly.  I could hear the Spanish conversations and snoring medleys through the paper thin walls. They arranged a taxi for 20$ return to Ricon de la Vieja and in luck as 2 others were going as it was not feasible with just me. The young american couple kindly invited me along on a day hike on the trails where we saw white throated magpie jays with striking tufts on the crown, blue crowned motmot, monkeys, agouti and coati. We had to pay 700 colones to the landowner who owns a section of the stone track to the National Park.  The volcano last erupted in 1991 with lava still broiling at or near the surface so there´s mud pots and steam vents reeking of sulphur next to dry, rocky savanna scrub, tropical dry forest and decidous trees.  This National Park is far more low key and visited than others.

I wandered around the pleasant Plaza in the early evening where a band was playing, a full church service and lots of people out for the evening constitutional stroll.  29 year old started chatting me up by saying I was foxy and sexy which is amazing at my age – more like practising of English!