After skipping ahead in time to discuss my current adventures with the “king of fruit” it’s time to get back to the story of my time in La Fortuna, Costa Rica. There are quite a few parks around the area, and Elani and I decided to check out Mirador el Silencio. It’s a private reserve just outside of town in the jungle at the base of Arenal Volcano. As one might expect, the views of the volcano were quite good, although of course the peak was covered in clouds. I think we saw the peak about twice in the two weeks we were there.
Arenal Volcano with its typical cloud cover Taken by Elani
The trails in the reserve lead up to the remains of the lava flow from the 1992 eruption. The flow itself isn’t a flat slab of rock like some, but rather a boulder field slowly being reclaimed by vegetation. In a few more decades, I imagine the whole thing will look pretty much like the rest of the jungle at the base of the volcano, but now it’s an eerie mix of short, bright green shrubs poking out between jagged black rocks.
Lave fields from Arenal’s 1992 eruption Taken by Elani
Of course, being a nature reserve, there was plenty of flora and fauna. The forested parts were filled with huge trees whose branches serve as hosts to ferns, bromeliads and a slew of other plant life. Closer to ground level, we spotted orchids and some wonderful looking berries that I didn’t recognize, but I think we can assume were either delicious or deadly poisonous. I decided the safe option was not to find out
Every tree is basically its own aerial garden Taken by ElaniOrchids Taken by ElaniDelicious or deadly poison..hmm Taken by Elani
As is typical for Costa Rica, the bird life was in fine form. We spotted several of these large black birds that look like some sort distant relative to turkeys. Even the parking lots had some great sights, with a colony of Montezuma Oropendolas and a couple of Keel Billed Toucans.
What I like to refer to as a “proto-turkey” Taken by ElaniA Montezuma Oropendolas – try saying that three times fast Taken by Elani
However, the most exciting wildlife sightings had to be the monkeys. They were much too high up to photograph, unfortunately. But we saw two species, the howler monkey which we’d definitely heard before but only seen once, and spider monkeys, in the only sighting we would ultimately have of them. The spider monkeys were by far the most impressive. A small group of about half a dozen went swinging through the treetops way above our heads. Spider monkeys are athletic and fearless even by monkey standards, and watching a group swinging through the treetops at speeds I’d be hard pressed to match sprinting on flat ground was something to behold. After all that, we hopped in our rental car and headed off to unwind with a relaxing dip in the hot springs before heading back to town for dinner. It was a great way to spend a day exploring.
Elani and I went to the two main forest preserves in the area – La Reserva Bosque Nuboso Santa Elena and La Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde. I’m just going to refer to them as the Santa Elena and Monteverde reserves to make life easier. We nicely bookended our trip by going to the Santa Elena reserve on the day after we arrived and the Monteverde reserve the day before we left. Both the reserves are in cloud forest – so named because they’re on the top of mountains and in the clouds a lot of the time.
To get to the Santa Elena reserve, we had our hotel reserve us a spot on one of the little shuttle vans that go scurrying around a few times a day, picking up folks at their hotels and driving them 20 minutes on rough dirt road through the jungle. They charge a whopping $2 for this service. So getting there was cheap and easy.
We paid our entrance fee (the standard $15 that Costa Rica seems to charge for popular parks), then grabbed a map from the front desk and set out to explore. The jungle here is lush. I’m going to say it again for emphasis, L-U-S-H. The plant life is dense and plentiful, emerald green leave of every shape and size pretty much fill your vision in any direction you choose to look, broken up occasionally by a few bright tropical flowers here and there. And the plants didn’t just restrict themselves to growing out of the ground, oh no, they grew out of other plants. The trees were covered with a multitude of other plants. Thick layers of moss on hung off of their upper branches, broken up here and there by bromeliads and the occasional orchid. A wide variety of creeping plants scaled up their trunks from the ground and vines hung down from their canopies. It was pretty intense. Time for some pictures to illustrate my point:
The dense jungle of the Santa Elena Reserve Taken by ElaniTrees provide a platform for other plant to grow on Taken by ElaniA might Ficus tree Taken by ElaniBerries I think – probably best not to eat them Taken by ElaniTropical flowers Taken by Elani
The fauna in Santa Elena was a bit more elusive. It was a pretty wet day when we visited, so some of the creatures may have been hunkering down to stay dry. We saw a couple of insects and several large millipedes. Birds were scares, but made the best showing. The most impressive (and certainly the easiest to photograph) was the black guan, a chicken-sized ground bird that seemed pretty much indifferent to our presence.
A brightly colored beetle Taken by ElaniA millipede Taken by ElaniA black guan Taken by Elani
The final stop was the lookout tower. Not only was it fairly rusted out, it was fairly poorly constructed in the first place. It hurt me a little as an engineer. Is it really so hard to make a decent welded structure? I’ve had that thought several times in Costa Rica, but this was definitely the worst example. Oh well, we climbed anyways and were rewarded by quite a good view of the trees from canopy level and the surrounding hills.
Seriously WTF Taken by ElaniGreat view, terrible tower Taken by Elani
The trip to the Monteverde reserve was a bit less convenient, but equally cheap. There is one large bus that runs from the center of town to the reserve, but the real issue is that there is a bus at 7:30am, then no more until 1:20pm. Which is to say there isn’t a bus at the time when a sane human being would want to go there. But whatever, we had to wake up early to see breathtaking natural beauty, boo hoo. Much like Santa Elena, Monteverde is a lush dense, jungle. The crowds were a little larger, and we had to pick our way past a few clusters of people on guided tours, but once those cleared out, it wasn’t so bad. There were a few more attractions in this park, including a waterfall, a lookout platform (with great views of the surrounding hills), and a hanging bridge (which was an excellent way of getting a view at canopy level).
A bloom in the jungle Taken by ElaniTropical flower – Monteverde Reserve Taken by ElaniTree fern flower/fruit? I don’t know tree ferns are weird Taken by ElaniFern tip unfolding Taken by ElaniView from the lookout platform Taken by ElaniAnother view from the lookout Taken by ElaniWaterfall at Monteverde Reserve Taken by ElaniElani on the canopy bridge Taken by GeoffTrees as seen from the bridge Taken by Elani
The animal life was a little more active in Monteverde, I think in large part because the day we went had considerably more sunny stretches then our day in Santa Elena. Several varieties of colorful song birds were out, insects were more plentiful, and some mammals made an appearance. We saw a couple of aguti (a large rodent that looks something like a cross between a rabbit and a guinea pig) and a coati. Though that was after we popped out for lunch at the nearby hummingbirdcafé. So I was kind of “coati-ed out” at that point. If you want to know how our lunch went, read this post.
Yellow song bird Taken by ElaniOne of the most colorful damn bugs I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen a lot of bugs Taken by ElaniAn aguti Taken by ElaniOh great ANOTHER coati Taken by Elani
Even though the jungles may not have been quite as teeming with wild animals as I would have liked, being able to wander through dense, vine-covered jungles and catching views through the mists of the vast rolling hills of full of trees fading off into the distance was a truly amazing way to spend the day. If you ever find yourself in that part of the world, I recommend making the trip to one – or preferably both – of these wonderful nature reserves.
