We didn’t really have any ambition to visit the capital city but transport options forced our hand. From Drake Bay (where we’d spent another night after leaving Corcovado National Park) we took the 7.30am boat back to Sierpe and saw crocs along the way. We then jumped on the bus and retraced our steps back to Palmer Norte where this time the cash point worked without us having to phone the bank! By 10.30am we were on a bus bound for San Jose – a journey costing $10pp and taking about 5 hours.
Steve had booked us into Hotel Guima which was handily located right round the corner from the bus stand for Monteverde and a steal at $22 a night. The catch? We weren’t in the best part of town but then even after wandering into the centre we don’t think there is a good bit. San Jose is by far and away the most run down and seediest city we’ve been in so far; rife with abject poverty, substance addiction and prostitution. Put it this way we grabbed something we could eat in our room and made sure we were back indoors before it was dark.
Anything good to report? Well, we found an excellent bookshop stocking plenty of Lonely Planets, written in English, with only a $5 mark up as opposed to the 50% of South American bookshops. Steve is much happier not he’s furnished with a Central America travel guide written this century! The other good thing is the Monteverde buses leave at 6.30am so we were soon beyond the city limits. The actual destination for the bus ($5 and 4hrs) is Santa Elena but the area is referred to as Monteverde.
Santa Elena
We had planned to only spend a few days in Costa Rica but decided to try one more time to find a sloth. The morning was a tad chilly but we set off with bright, clear skies and were soon travelling past coffee plantations while following the coast road. About 40kms from our destination the bus turned off the highway and towards the hills and 20kms along their turned onto a dirt track. The last stage of the journey was slow going on the unpaved surface but we were in lovely countryside and enjoying the ride with views looking back to the ocean. There were a few touts at the bus stand but they were far from pushy and in fact gave us directions to the hostel we had a reservation for.
Hostel Cabinas El Pueblo http://www.cabinaselpueblo.com/index1.php has large comfortable rooms with hot water, fridge, TV, shared balcony and communal kitchen; that at $35 is reasonable for Costa Rica. The couple who own / run the place are friendly and helpful and their office has all the information on the area you could wish for. But, even though we’d recommend the place, there’s a few niggles. They make a big song and a dance about charging the same as other tour operators for trips/activities but use the small commission they receive to pay for the room’s included breakfast. Breakfast times are set in stone (fair enough) but if you’re going on a trip or catching a bus then you’re up too early to be able to have it. Plus there are signs everywhere laying down the house rules (again, fair enough) but there are far too many of them and we didn’t like being told you’d be fined.
So what attracts people to this area? In a nutshell, the cloud forest and the creatures that inhabit it, particularly the quetzal. However, people tend to go zipping across it attached to a wire, take in a canopy walkway or look at the animals in boxes or cages. Some, more adventurous souls choose to take a guided walk round a private reserve, and others opt to spend time hiking the trails in one of the two nearby forest reserves. We decided to do a night walk ($23pp for 2 hours) and take a morning trip to the quieter Santa Elena Reserve to maximise the chances of finding that sloth.
Still no luck with the sloth but we enjoyed the night walk as, even though this is a popular thing to do, it was well organised. Our group consisted of 6 and, from what I could see the maximum seemed to be 8, with the various groups walking around different areas of the property but sharing sightings. Again the guides had perfect English, were very knowledgeable and knew where to look for interesting things. A large stick insect was interesting to see and learn about as was glow-in-the-dark fungi. We saw quite a number of sleeping birds and were pleased when he spotted a white-sided palm pit viper. However, the highlights were seeing 3 kinkajous and as we were driving out of the forest an armadillo crossed over the road.
The next morning’s trip to the cloud forest reserve wasn’t quite as successful – like we saw nothing other than lots of lovely plants of course. We’d booked to go on the 6.30am bus ($2) as advised but to be honest we needn’t have bothered going so early. Entrance to the park is $14 and double that if you decide you want a guide but to be honest you don’t need one. There are 4 trails of varying lengths with all of them clearly sign-posted and easy to follow, plus; don’t forget 80% of the animals are nocturnal. We’d taken a picnic but of course there was nowhere dry to sit and in fact we were back at the hostel by midday. It took us only 3 hours to walk virtually every step of the 4 trails and a total of 12kms. We chose to walk the 6kms back to town which was pleasant and provided us with some much needed exercise. No sloth and in the morning we move on to Nicaragua, but before we left, Freddy, the very friendly chap from the guesthouse gave us a bag of coffee from his own plantation, and we think he sort of said ‘you will need this in Nicaragua as the coffee there is rubbish’. A nice gesture from the hosts.
There’s a load to do and see in Costa Rica but it all costs. The country attracts a lot of North American tourists so English is widely spoken making it easy to get around. We’re glad we popped in to track down some of its wonderful creatures.
