COSTA RICA – MONTEVERDE

March 7 – 12, 2024

The road to Monteverde from Tilaran is only 38 km, but it took us 3 hours to get there. It is higher in the mountains and the road is constant curves and switchbacks. We have been getting some really nice Airbnb in Costa Rica, for under $65/night.

We weren’t in cheap country anymore. The first night we got there we decided to go out for a hamburger. They were $12 each! We nearly fell over when we bought our usual supply of eggs, bread, ham, beans, water, and some fruit and the bill came to $104! That is almost Canadian prices.

There was a real cool looking restaurant called the Tree House. Aptly named, because there was a massive tree growing in the middle of it. We were told the food was not that great, but the ambiance was nice. “Go for a drink” is what we were told. We had a lemonade, that cost $7. When we were in Suchitoto in El Salvador, a lemonade was 70 cents. I guess atmosphere is costly.

There is an orchid farm in the middle of town. It was very interesting. I learned that an orchid can release between 1-3 million seeds, but only 1% actually germinate and become a plant. Orchids mimic the kind of bug or animal they need to pollinate them. Some have blossoms that look like cockroaches,

some like spiders

some like hummingbirds

some were so tiny, the size of an “o”

Some of the orchids had really interesting smells. The hummingbird one smelled like cloves. Another one smelled like cotton candy. One even smelled like blood, with a tin-like smell. Our guide said that they only let their smells off in the evening. The plant can no longer charm by their looks, so they let off a smell to attract pollinators.

Some orchids were just pretty.

Ans some were whimsical

We bought a tour to Selvatura Park. It is a large park that offers zip-lines, hanging bridges, sloths, butterflies and reptiles. There is also a restaurant on site.

Our first part of the tour was to see the sloths. They had 12 Choloepus females in a big domed building.

The Choloepus is the two-toed sloth. They were rescue animals and could not be released back into the wild for various reasons. The reason they only had females is because it would not be fair for babies to be raised in captivity. They were certainly used to visitors. Usually a solitary and shy animal, they seemed to pose for us.

They reach sexual maturity at about 3.5-4 years. The mating session takes about a minute (they are not slow in this regard). The baby is born 11 months and one week later. If she gives birth to twins, she lets the second baby fall to the forest floor. She can only care for one at a time. The baby stays with the mother for one year. At which time she leaves in in a tree and off she goes. The youngster may associate with the mother for up to two years. After that, they go their separate ways, living solitary lives. Our guide said he has seen spats and fights between these in captivity.

It was funny to see them hanging upside down, with their face in the feeding bowl.

After about 45 minutes of admiring these slow moving animals, we moved on to the Butterfly Garden. It was on the other side of the same domed building.

My favorite butterfly is the blue morpho, but it is almost impossible to get a picture of it.

Although it is a huge butterfly, it flies in a bouncing fashion; and when it sits to eat, it closes its wings, to reveal the big eye-like dots to scares predators.

There was lots of room for all the different kinds of butterflies to move around. Feeding platforms were set up with, what looked like, mashed bananas.

There were about 4 wooden cupboards where the chrysalis were waiting to hatch.

The garden brings in chrysalis in order to control the caterpillar problem. If they allowed the eggs to hatch into larvae, the entire enclosure would be eaten away. We came back an hour later. Look how many have hatched!

There were lots of butterfly wings laying on the ground. Interestingly, there seemed to be more closer to the chrysalis cupboards.

Here are some pictures of some colourful butterflies

The butterflies were landing on us because we were warm and our sweat gave off minerals they need.

We then went into the reptile & amphibian pavilion.

There were about 20 glass enclosures that held poisonous frogs,

frogs that ate poisonous frogs, vipers, non-vipers and a lone iguana.

As we were waiting for our shuttle to take us back to town, we saw this little guy desperately trying to raid the organic waste bin. While it was on the roof of the shed, there were two little kids just squealing with delight. The coati did not seem bothered in the least.

Although we had taken a night tour in Bijagua, we liked it so much we signed up for another one. There were more people this time, and we saw some totally different things. The trail was not as defined as the first night tour and at times it felt like we were in Sleepy Hollow.

The most exciting, for me, was the scorpion. Our guide told us to shut our torches off while he scanned with a red light. Suddenly, something blue started to glow. It was the scorpion! Something in his exoskeleton reacts to the red light.

Further along we saw a tarantella. It was so difficult to see, even when he put his telescope on it. I didn’t get a picture. We saw lots of sleeping birds. (I thought the purpose of the night tour was to see awake animals….?) The motmot’s bright feathers did glow in the torch light, however.

our guide caught a bug that had fake eyes, that glowed in the dark

We saw a ficus tree (I think that’s what he called it) that had weird holes in it. He had us shut our torches off again while he went to the tree and shone his flashlight up into it. It looked like those lanterns from Morocco, with stars and moons cut into the metal. It was SO cool!

At the beginning of the tour, he asked if we had questions. I said I wanted to see an armadillo, so if he could please hunt one up, I would really appreciate it. We all laughed. Only minutes before we got back to base, he spotted an armadillo. It was on the move, so I only got one bad picture of it. But I did see one!

When we checked into our guesthouse, it had a bad smell coming from under the sink. I contacted Erick right away to let him know. He did what he could, but it was still stinky. We bought some disinfectant and baking soda then put some coffee grounds in a bowl and put it all under the sink. It killed the smell. Erick and Darien were so concerned about our comfort they offered to move us to a different apartment. We liked this one, and the smell was gone, so we stayed. They reimbursed me for the cleaning products, then invited us for dinner at the Tree House Restaurant as their way of expressing gratitude for our understanding. We enjoyed the house pizza and a glass of lemonade. Thank you, guys.

Erick gave me the phone number for a taxi to catch our 5:00 AM bus to San Jose….