Last weekend our interns had the opportunity to visit Santa Elena and Monteverde. Both of them are very well known as major ecotourism destinations in Costa Rica and recognized due their biodiversity of flora and fauna and the preservation of the areas.
Monteverde is a world above the coastal towns that dot the country’s famous shoreline. It is a place of cloud forests and coffee plantations, monkeys, mist, and friendly locals.The town of Santa Elena where we stayed in a hostel is small and cosy, filled with tasty restaurants and folksy artisan shops, while the nearby rainforest hosts a remarkable amount of biodiversity.On the drive from Hojancha to Santa Elena, we could already feel the air become colder and fresher as we were getting closer to our destination.
The weekend of adventures started with an exciting night tour to observe the large variety of nightlife in Monteverde. For us it was a completely new experience to see the nocturnal animals start their activity. At night the forest is filled with species very different than those you can observe during daylight. We got very lucky and saw a sloth, kinkajous, a female tarantula, silver fox, frogs and a variety of insects. That definitely allowed us to discover a whole new facet of animal life in Costa Rica.
The next day we woke up early to visit the local farmers market and took a guided tour to Curi-Cancha Reserve for some bird watching. We caught a sight of some of the amazing birds that not even the locals see every day. Our guide, Marcos, taught us how to recognize different birds, to see the difference between hummingbirds, which plants are edible and which are not. It was definitely a fun and educational tour that we all would recommend to do. In the afternoon, three of our interns took a leap of faith on the bungee jump while the others were tasting some of the delicious local handmade chocolates.
The bungee jump was certainly one crazy experience, since the Extremo company offers the highest bungee jump in Latin-America, with a height of 143 meters (469 feet).
One of the must do’s in Monteverde is visiting the cloud forest. There are several amazing tours that you could do in the cool, misty cloud-forest. We tried out the sky walk, sky tram and sky trek canopy tour. Sky-walk was a combination of 6 different suspension bridges and walking trails through the Monteverde rainforest. This tour was also guided and helped us to study about the plants and animals that you can see in these forests. One of the most fun and exciting tours was definitely the sky trek canopy tour. The four of us had a lot of fun gliding through zip lines in the middle of the forest, feeling like we were flying. The sky trek canopy tour started by going up the hill with the sky tram and consisted of 10 different cables. It was a good way to finish an already amazing weekend.
We all had a lot of fun experiencing another side of Costa Rica and will be taking adventures like this in the future as well.
If you feel inspired by our trip and would like us to help you with a trip of your own, please feel free to contact us for more information and for a personalized itinerary!
Written by Kertu Tutt, marketing intern