Costa Rica
and an astounding 3,200 species of plants — as many as all of Canada — including huge ferns, bromeliads, strangler figs, wild avocado and many more.
The most popular trail here, Sendero Bosque Nuboso (“Cloud Forest Path”) winds through the jungle, ending at a lookout over the continental divide, the geographic boundary between the Atlantic and Pacific watersheds. A sign at the top describes it this way: “To understand this, the water that falls on your left hand will lead into the Atlantic Ocean, and the water that falls on your right hand will lead into the Pacific Ocean.”
Make sure one of those hands is holding onto your hat — it’s windy up here.
Our signature Monteverde experience came later that afternoon, when we headed to Sky Adventures Park, where were we suited up with harnesses and helmets for our next adventure.
I’ve been ziplining in Ohio and other U.S. destinations, but — wow — it was nothing like this.
This is where commercial ziplining got its start, back in the 1970s, when a graduate student from California was doing research in the forest and devised a system to travel among the treetops. A new adventure activity was born.
Today, there are dozens of places to zipline in Costa Rica, including at least a half-dozen in the Monteverde area. I chose Sky in part because it’s the only park in the area that doesn’t require participants to self-brake with a gloved hand (I’ve been on ziplines that require hand braking before, and, while safe and relatively easy to use, I figured I’d rather be fully concentrating on the scenery in Costa Rica).
We took a tram to the top of the mountain and then zigzagged back down, on seven successive cables that stretched as far as 2,500 feet across and 328 feet above the valley — with spectacular views all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Truly unforgettable.
But first — and I’ve never seen this in Ohio — there’s a small bar at the top of the mountain, where the tram deposits riders and where we were invited to have a drink before our descent. Tequila shots, we were convinced, would take the edge off our nerves.
One final thrill, at the end of the zip tour, was the optional Vertigo Drop, a bungee jump free-fall to the ground 80 feet below. Two members of our nine-person tour opted out of this activity, choosing a slower rappel to the earth’s surface. The rest of us took the plunge.
My kids asked me why I didn’t scream on the way down. My honest reply: “I was too scared.”
One more Monteverde activity: On the afternoon of our arrival, we took a twohour coffee and chocolate tour with Don Juan Tours, a small coffee producer in the area. Guide Jeronimo Jose Palacios Calero first took us through the chocolate-making process, cutting into a football-shaped cacao fruit to reveal rows of seeds, poisonous to many animals (“that’s why the vet says don’t feed chocolate to dogs and cats,” he said).
After the seeds are fermented and dried, they’re ground and mixed with sugar, seasonings and other ingredients to make chocolate. The coffee process is similar: Coffee berries are picked by hand, hulled, and then the beans are dried and roasted, prepped for brewing.
There’s also a chapter on the tour that covers sugar cane — initially grown here, according to Calero, because owner Don Juan wanted to make moonshine.
Tour samples are a highly caffeinated feast — dark and white chocolate, chocolate-covered espresso beans, numerous kinds of coffee, even moonshine, if you’re lucky.
These days, Don Juan is more of an educational farm than a major agricultural producer, with a gift shop that will leave you wishing you traveled with an extra suitcase.
We had one final farm ex- perience during our Monteverde stay, at the home we rented for two nights, a place called Casa Canitas, a three-bedroom house in the town of Santa Elena, owned and rented through Arco Iris Lodge. The house sits on a small farm, tended by a caretaker named Herman, who brought us fresh eggs in the morning and gave us a tour of the property, which features turkeys and chickens, a variety of vegetables and herbs, fruit trees and more.
Herman didn’t speak much English — so my daughter, Rachel, who is (nearly) fluent in Spanish, provided translation.
Although most Costa Ricans we met did speak English, there was occasionally a language barrier. Rachel earned her keep by translating, but she wasn’t perfect. As we drove toward Monteverde, my husband needed help translating a road sign.
“Something ahead,” my daughter replied, as we careened over a speed bump.
Three days on the beach For our final stop in Costa Rica, we drove down from the mountains, southwest toward the coast. Our destination: Manuel Antonio, a park and region renown for wildlife and spectacular beaches.
Before we got to the park, we saw our first sloth — maneuvering on a rope above a roadway near our hotel. We paused in the midday heat and marveled.
We saw two more sloths inside Manuel Antonio National Park, the smallest of Costa Rica’s 32 national parks. It’s also the most popular and at times, very crowded — with the main trail clogged with slowmoving visitors scouting for wildlife (myself included).
I had booked a guided tour in advance with Manuel Antonio Expeditions, and our group of eight followed intently the watchful eyes of Eiderson Bustos, our young, enthusiastic guide. He did not disappoint, finding numerous monkeys, iguanas, bats, birds and an extremely venomous snake called a Fer de Lance (it was up in a tree, so not to worry).
“The carrots I ate this morning are working,” Bustos told us.
He carried a telescope, which, when combined with our cellphones, allowed us to take surprisingly sharp photos of these far-away creatures.
The park features 10 miles of trails through the rainforest, but the most spectacular parts of Manuel Antonio aren’t through the trees — they’re along the shore. This park has some of the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen anywhere, with deep-blue water and soft sand, dotted by rock formations and backed by rugged jungle. It doesn’t get any prettier than this.
Other than the park tour, all we wanted to do during this part of the trip was hang out by the water.
We stayed at two separate hotels near the park — Shana by the Beach, with a steep trail leading to a small crescent-shaped swath of sand known as Biesanz Beach (sometimes called “secret beach.”)
And, for our last two nights, Karahe Beach Hotel, a short walk to Espadilla Beach, a long, wide sandy public space filled with locals and tourists, along with opportunities for surfing lessons, parasailing, freshly made snow cones and more.