[For this fourth and final post directly relating to a recent trip to Costa Rica, I’m departing from a previous chronological narrative and incorporating a thematic approach including cloud-forest hikes and patio meditations. I hope that you’ve enjoyed the tour….]
Our cabin at Hermida’s Coffee House and farm near the Santa Elena and Monteverde cloud forests of north-central Costa Rica offered an exciting springboard into the wild. Our first mountain road ascent to the village of Santa Elena gave our rented SUV a flat tire (not surprising since I’d noted that the tires had already seen many country miles as we began the journey). My wife and I taught our daughter how to safely change a tire on a sketchy highland road, while my attention was often distracted wondrously by noisy flocks of parakeets, parrots and chachalacas.
While enjoying an afternoon beer and pretzel break at a brewery in Santa Elena, we reflected on Costa Rica’s modest infrastructure with regard to tourism. Santa Elena and adjacent Monteverde are among the most visited sites in Costa Rica and yet the bustling villages seem quaint, without the tinhorn chaos and the neon glitter of so many Western tourist traps. It’s as if the towns have worked to keep their authenticity and roots while saying to the visitor, yeah, our roads might be rough and our sodas (small town eateries) unimposing, but wait till you see what our woods contain…
Our nights at the rustic Coffee House provided relaxation after hours of hiking on the higher ground of the Cordilleran cloud forest. A Mottled Owl hooted just beyond our porchlight in the rain; I thought about the insectivorous blooms of Dutchman’s Pipe, ostensibly the country’s largest flower, trapping bugs outside of our doorway. The malodorous plant will trap an insect one day but release it on the following day with pollen for another flower. I scribbled notes about our forest hikes, and wondered how those hikes would compare to investigations in days to come: to the national parks at Juan Castro Blanco and Tapanti, to Guayabo National Monument, to the archaeological sites and ancient churches, and to our stays at Grecia and Orosi…
We chose to hike the Santa Elena cloud forest rather than the popular Monteverde site for the simple reason that it would be less crowded. Indeed, the 8.4-kilometer hike was like being gifted our own private jungle to explore. Again, I looked to birds as my gateway to the lush green forest, to the overhead bromeliads and orchids on the boughs. A Black Guan, a life bird for me, perched beside the trail, relaxed and apparently unafraid, its blue beak and red eyes as memorable to observers as the post-hike ice-cream savored in a Monteverde shop. That afternoon we also visited a forest gulley where a large Ficus tree had fallen and bridged the banks of a stream, its roots reaching downward from the trunk like tentacles anchored to the flow.
The coming days would bring numerous stops and wonderful diversions, but I want to end my Costa Rican narrative (for now) at Santa Elena/Monteverde. This cloud-forest country shares an interesting parallel with the Osa Peninsula and its wondrous Corcovado National Park in that it also contains about 2.5% of the world’s biodiversity, a fact I’m still trying to wrap my scattered brain around.
One sun-drenched morning in Monteverde we enjoyed our locally-produced coffee while observing Keel-billed Toucans, Silver-throated Tanagers, and Collared Redstarts. I listened to the tolling EENK! notes of an unseen Three-wattled Bellbird, a unique canopy dweller and one of the loudest birds in all creation. And then there was The Hummingbird Gallery– on the wooded edge of town…
In most of the wild or rural locations in Costa Rica I found that if you sit or stand patiently in one place and keep your senses on alert, the birds or other wildlife will appear as if by magic from the lush surroundings. On the patio of a small business like The Hummingbird Gallery, however, you can walk right into a hive of ongoing activity. Bananaquits and (especially) hummingbirds were zooming around the hanging feeders and almost begging for observation. These bejeweled avian creatures, hovering or flying in any direction (almost like the sharpest of human minds) had names like hermit, mountain-gem, and emerald– a sampling of the 50 hummingbird species to be found in Costa Rica, the small country with a giant heart.
My favorite of the hummers might have been the Violet Sabrewing, a large 6-inch creature with a dazzling violet hue and a white-tipped tail. All of the birds were beautiful in their own way and, in this case, almost as remarkable to a first-time visitor as the iconic Resplendent Quetzals that had opened our eyes at a first stop in the mountains of Costa Rica.
