Our head in the clouds

In the following narrative , please excuse the lack of punctuation marks, apostrophes, etc. as I m using a Spanish keyboard and can t find the appropriate keys.

Saturday March 10 dawned cloudy with heavy rain showers, totally obscuring the Arenal volcano which had been such a magnificent sight in the clear morning air the previous day. We actually had to borrow one of the hotels umbrellas when we checked out to keep ourselves from getting soaked as we trundled our packs along the small paths among the cottages as Silencio del Campo. Luckily by the time we set off, the rain had mostly let up and there were just a few drops hitting the windshield of our van as we headed towards Lake Arenal.

We were headed to Monteverde...literally Green Mountain....and one of Costa Ricas only cloud forests. When planning the trip I had come across a web site advertising a jeep, boat, jeep service which took travellers across the lake instead of the arduous three hour bus ride along one of CRs ubiquitous bumpy unpaved roads. Instead of an actual jeep, our transportation was a mini bus and after half an hour we alighted at a small marina where several boats were docked. After waiting a further 10 minutes for our boat to arrive from across the lake, we hauled our packs down to the launch and were off. Unfortunately the socked in day prevented us from experiencing the advertised magnificent views of Arenal en route, so we had to be content with a rather dreary vista of the grey lake. This lake had been created when a dam was built on one of the rivers in the area, flooding a valley and creating Lake Arenal. I would guess it is about 15 kms across and the trip took us about an hour.

When we arrived at the far side, we were a little dismayed to see that there was no dock at this end....the flat bottomed boat simply pulled up on the muddy shore and we all jumped off, trying to keep from falling in the water while lugging our heavy packs ashore. What had not been advertised on the JBJ web site was the fact that we would have to carry our bags about half a km through a soggy cow pasture to the road where we would catch the bus for the next leg. It is amazing how heavy a 35 lb pack can become in short order and we were soon trying to drag our packs using their wheels, though with mixed success over the uneven and muddy path. However, we did make it, and luckily it had stopped raining, so after again waiting for our mini van to arrive, we set off for Santa Elena, the small town just outside the park of Monteverde.

A two hour ride over very bumpy roads, but through some magnificent mountainous terrain, brought us to the small one street town of Santa Elena. As we got out of the bus, we were almost blown over by a very strong wind, which, as we soon discovered, is a constant feature of this mountainous region. Our hotel, Poco a Poco....as the story goes the owners started with a couple of rooms and slowly, little by little added others until they had a full fledged hotel...was about half a kilometre from the town and is in a ravine in the side of the mountain where the winds were funnelled as they swept down the mountain towards the coastal plain thousands of feet below.

We checked into our room which turned out to be on the third and top floor of the small hotel. the room was nice enough, but as we soon discovered between the non stop howling gale battering the side of the hotel and the frequent traffic along the road...our room was right on the end next to the road to Monteverde....we were to have a very loud and mostly sleepless night. We rented a DVD as there was a player in the room....this year s best pïcture, The Departed....and tried to ignore the gale, but even that didnt help much. We thought the roof would surely blow off during the night, but the building survived and next morning we asked to be moved to a first floor room away from the road. So, our second night was much better though we could still hear the roaring gale whipping the eaves and trees outside.

After our arrival we walked back into town and had a quick lunch at a small local eatery and then wandered around in hopes of something of interest appearing, but to no avail. We eventually just returned to Poco a Poco and whiled away the afternoon. A reasonably decent though expensive dinner at the hotel was followed by our dvd and early bed, though not an early sleep.

The next morning we grabbed a taxi which took us the 6 kms to the park entrance. Monteverde is advertised as a cloud forest, though as we were to learn from our guide later that morning, it should more correctly be termed a premountainous humid forest. In fact, it does not rain a huge amount here, but is almost continually cloud covered and of course very windy. The moist conditions and very cool temperatures....we had our long pants and jackets on....produce a stunningly beautiful forest with huge moss covered trees, vines and a profusion of ferns covering the floor of the forest.

When we arrived about 10 am, we learned that there was a guided tour setting of at 11 30 so we decided to sign up. We had thought that we could just pay an entry fee and set off into the forest along the jungle paths, but when we went to pay, we learned it was not that simple. Apparently the number of people allowed in the park at any one time is restricted and the fellow selling tickets said there were 60 people waiting to get in ahead of us. He did say that joining the tour would guarantee entry, but in the meantime we would have to wait our turn. We actually spent about half an hour watching some very colorful humming birds at feeders nearby, and then were let into the park. We walked around for a while and returned to join our tour group, which proved to be an excellent decision as without the help of our guide we would have seen little or no wildlife I m sure.

Our guide, Fredrico, was a biologist who was fluent in English and French as well as his native Spanish. Turns out he had attended a French immersion school in primary school. Three people from Quebec joined us on the tour....have I mentioned Canadians seem to be the main tourists down here....so the tour was a bilingual one....English and French. Fredrico turned to have a passion for the park and was extremely knowledgeable about its flora and fauna. He turned our forest walk into a magical and very informative experience. He carried a high powered telescope attached to a large tripod, and when he spotted something interesting in the trees he would set it up and give us a look. How these guides spot animals in the forest so readily is beyond us. Even when he pointed things out to us we would often not be able to see them until he had his telescope in place and we were peering through the eyepiece.

For the first hour or so we did not see much in the way of birds, so Frerico told us about the many medicinal plants in the forest and how the natives used many of them. Some of these we had heard about in Belize, but one new one was a stinging nettle plant that Fredrico demonstrated by rubbing the underside of its leaf on his exposed arm. We watched as a numbe of small red dots appeared. He said that the nettle produced some intial discomfort which quickly went away to be replaced by a warm glowing sensation. He said the natives used this plant to keep themselves warm if they had to spend protracted periods in the forest away from their base and warming fires. We have been continually amazed on this trip to learn how ingenious native peoples have been in discovering uses for the plants in this part of the world. Many of our mondern day medicines stem directly from the experience of these indigenous people.

However, we had come here to see the many birds that frequent the forest and we were not to be disappointed. Fredrico pointed out many birds and told us all about them. But as the tour wore on and we approached the two and a half hour mark we became very anxious about seeing the prize that everyone comes here to witness...the fabled quetzal.

We had learned about the quetzal in Guatemala where it is the national bird...and the national currency is named after it... though it is now in such low numbers there because of its habitat being destroyed, that sightings are extremely rare. Costa Rica is much more conservation minded....27 per cent of the country as been set aside as wildlife preserve...and there are many more quetzales here than other Central American countries. Fredrico had said that there were upwards of 200 nesting pairs in the park and as we were right at the start of their mating season, our chances were reasonable of spotting one...though no guarantees. And just as we were giving up hope, Fredrico suddenly stopped and gazed intently into the upper canopy and then quickly positioned his telescope. A large male...right up there, he said. We all gaped at the tree he was pointing to but could not see anything with the naked eye, but in turn we all had a look through the scope and saw the magnificent bird sitting on a branch high in the tree. The quetzal has a bright red breast, blue and green head and long green-gold tail feathers, and some people claim it to be the most beautiful bird in the world. And a few moments later we spotted a female and then another male. Although our official time for the tour was up just as we spotted these birds, Fredrico was so excited that he just kept up a continuous commentary and kept repositioning his scope to focus in on the next sighting. For another hour we stood there watching as these beautiful birds flew around the branches above us. It was a wonderful and amazing experience. Fredrico said that only one in eight visitors actually sees a quetzal and for us to have seen several at once and observe them for such a long period was exceptional. Needless to say, we were overjoyed that we had decided to take the tour with this wonderful guide.

So still buzzing with excitement, we bid farewell to our Quebecois comrades and hopped the local bus, with Fredrico as it turned out, for the bumpy ride back to our hotel. Again we had had an outstanding day full of unexpected delights. We have been very fortunate on this trip to have had many days like this and we will certainly have many wonderful memories to last for the rest of our lives.

That evening we made our way down the dark road, literally bending double at times against the gale force wind, to St Elena to a neat restaurant built around and in a large tree. Our pizza was very good though way too much for the two of us to finish. So, after taking advantage of the free half hour of internet with any meal....we trundled back up the hill to our, thankfully, much quieter room and a decent night s sleep. And then next morning we set off for Rincon de la Vieja, our next port of call.