Costa Rica: Alajuela and Monteverde

(Post by Colin)

Hi All,

We had a fairly straight forward departure from LAX and took a flight via San Salvador to San Jose, Costa Rica.  We arrived around 1pm local time. We had booked a place near the airport for 2 nights in a suburb of San Jose called Alajuela. The first few minutes after our arrival were a bit hairy but not much more than that. Unsure of what the protocol for taking taxis was, it took us a bit to get our messages understood - that is us, the taxi driver, the booth we were told to go and buy our tickets and the helper who just wanted to carry our luggage to the taxi.

The general literature and advice about San Jose city was negative and so we had decided to give it a miss.  Alajuela was really just a stopping point to rest before carrying on. We stayed at a lovely guest house called  Casa Tago. Here we met fellow backpackers and exchanged a few stories of places to go and see.

Alajuela main square

Alajuela is a small place with not much to do. In the main square we did find this tiny museum/ art gallery named after Costa Rica's national hero,  Juan Santamaria.  It was good start for us because there was plenty information about Costa Rica in its early days and some quite cool - modern art work..

art in the museum

art in the museum

installation art in the museum

Alajuela has its advantages. Flights to Costa Rica arrive in the afternoon, and it will not give you much time to get to your next destination. Alajuela is a good alternative for a night stay. Also, a good place from where to explore the Central Valley area and within close distance to the Poas Volcano. You can even see it at a distance.

Here we had our first introduction to local food - "el casado" - literal translation is "the marriage. This consists of some kind of meat fish or chicken generally accompanied with black beans, rice and plantain. 

Typical Casado

We have not much more to say about Alajuela other than it took good care of us on our first days. We took the bus from Alajuela to Monteverde  -  famous for it's cloud-forests and natural reserves.

We had researched transport  and there was several options for the 4.5 hour trip.  $40  US each with a tourist shuttle or the local bus for the equivalent of $7.  We opted for the local bus which was old and rickety but perfectly safe. I would say that half on the bus were tourists like us and the other half locals..

Bus to Monteverde

There was no air con and it was very hot. Unlucky me sat next to a guy who probably had not had a shower for a while. We had our first glimpses of the Costa Rica that many fall in love with, endless mountains all covered in green, and lots of banana plantations. We had a couple of stops on the way, some of which would just see the driver leave the bus and return at some point, without so much letting us know what was happening.

A long windy, unpaved and bumpy road at times dubious finally delivered us to the strange eco system of Monteverde. When they say cloud forest they mean it. The place varies from sunny to rainy to covered in  pea soup fog from one moment to the next.

View from our window at Vista Golf

Monteverde is an area really and we were in the town/vilage of Santa Elena which  seems to exist essentially for tourism.  On arrival, we were assailed by a number of lodge owners, trying to excite the trade into their place. All done nicely actually, just straight forward selling: "orthopedic mattresses, hot water, clean sheets, breakfast included, television, quiet, Pura Vida!

First impressions were of a very touristic and not especially nice with lots of cabinas (accomodations) of varying quality and restaurants. But as you move away from the busy strip you begin to see a different story. We spent the first few hours after arriving wandering around looking for somewhere to stay. We eventually settled on  Cabinas Vista Golfo at $25 per night for a double with an amazing view of the cloud forest as you can see in the above and below pics...  Apparently on a  clear day it would be possible to see  the ocean..

View from Vista Golf, Monteverde

What sold this lodge to us above all the others? The charismatic charm of the owners Jorge and Annali. We felt they would take good care of us, and they did. 

That evening, following Jorge's advice, we had an amazing dinner at El FOGON.  The casado's here were delicious.. with fantastic tasting sweet plantain and a very laid back vibe.

The following day we woke up early and went to Reserva Santa Elena and walked the 5k trail - El Cano Negro. The more popular park is Monte Verde, but we were advised to check Santa Elena to avoid the tourist crowds. We came here on the promise of abundant wildlife but saw very little.

Our fist real experience of the strange sounds of the cloud forests and we had our first views of the Arenal Volcano.

It was a nice hike, we got deep into the heart of the forest completely surrounded by trees and seem to merge into one with everything else around them.

The diversity in fauna and flora only beginning to show. We also saw the first of many strange insects..  Kizzy actually went running off down the path when this huge insect flew straight towards us making a sound like a helicopter! It was too fast for us to get a photo - but here is another insect below..

We headed back to town for a light lunch, anxious to try the high adrenalin activities of the cloud forest which then followed with the Adventura zipline course.  Kizzy was worried about it but honestly she really loved it and was incredibly brave! I have never seen anything like this. 1 km long ziplines really high off the ground through the forest.  There was one called the superman which you were connected like you were flying....  amazing..  At the very end there was a tarzan jump which was insane !!!!

check out this link for a video - :


Link One - Me and Kizzy on the ziplines

We met a lovely girl - Sophie -  who had the good sense to waterproof her camera..  We were unable to take our camera out... so could not take photos or videos ourselves. She kindly shared the footage with us after. The link below shows  her doing the Tarzan jump  which we both did as well.

Link Two - Sophie on the Tarzan challenge


The Adventura team looked well after us. One of the guys in the group told us of a previous experience he had in Nicaragua, which was very unprofessional and they did not feel the company they chose had their safety as a priority concern.

The next day we got up really early and went out for a bird watching tour with Freddie. He was one of the owners of a lodge we visited when looking for accommodation, and was popular in Trip Advisor for his tours. 

Freddy

Toucan

Parrots

We were joined by a couple from Spain and all in all the tour was good. Freddie was clearly very knowledgeable and seemed to know how to call the birds and recognize them.  It was a little disappointing because it was hard to see them except through the telescope, hence the funny round angle from the photos above - the camera was looking into the telescope.

Butterfly 2

Butterfly 3

Strange insect

Butterfly

We also saw a white nosed Coati  but it literally ran across the path and was gone.  We had thought we would see loads of wildlife here in the cloud forests but it seemed that they were not so easy to spot. Well, at least for us, as we heard many fellow travelers sharing their close encounters.

One of the really nice things about Monteverde was meeting other travellers and holiday makers. Our conversations would often drift into 'where have you been?/ what have you done?/ you should do this...', once past this initial ritual we often learned a bit more about each other and our journey to this amazing country. We met several really nice couples -  one couple was Sophie and Dan who  work at MIT and live in Boston and we exchanged emails. Dan is a foody and said he would make sure we knew where to eat next time we were in Boston !!

We liked Monteverde but it did not really deliver on its promise and so we left a little disappointed. If we came again we would hire a  car 4/4 and really explore.  This would have  allowed  us to stay further away from the town  and to explore off the beaten path a bit more which I am sure would have had its rewards...

The highlight was definitely the canopy zip lines !

You can view the Picasa album here

Love you all.

Colin & Kizzy