When I think of Costa Rica, for me, the first thing that springs to mind is dense cloud forest, high in the mountains, full of birds and wildlife, with bridges suspended high in the canopy…. That’s the Costa Rica I’ve seen on TV in documentaries and on social media, and it’s the Costa Rica I was itching to see.
That’s why our next stop was Monteverde (or Santa Elena Town) which is home to the most famous cloud forest regions of Costa Rica. Here, we’d heard, were quetzals, trogons, motmots, bellbirds and other cotingas and so many species of hummingbirds. It was probably the bit I was most excited about.
To get there, the easiest and most affordable way from La Fortuna, is the famous “jeep-boat-jeep” combo, which takes you over lake Arenal. We booked it for $30 each which seemed great value compared to other transport options. However it turned out to be more of a bus-boat-minivan rather than actual jeep, but it still did the job.
The journey was very scenic and surprisingly quick too and so, leaving at 8am we found ourselves in Monteverde around 12pm, plenty of the day left.
I had mega plans for our 2 full days here, but to make the most of the first afternoon, we decided to book one of the hanging bridge parks which Monteverde is famous for. The 2 main ones are Selvatura and Treetopia, and we picked the latter because we’d read about questionable ethics at Selvatura, which has a “sloth habitat” often dubbed as the “sloth prison” 😦
The other reason we booked treetopia was that it was supposed to be better for bird spotting, and in the afternoon, they offer a free shuttle to the park, which we took advantage of.
We really enjoyed Treetopia, but in all honesty we didn’t see many birds. We could hear loads… loads of solitaires and nightingale thrushes, with their ethereal songs echoing through the mists and trees, but we only saw a handful. The highlights were a redstart, which nearly landed on Dave’s foot trying to get back to her nest(!), a pair of black guans, pair of blue dacnis (the male was SO BLUE), and some purple-throated mountain gem hummingbirds super close in the high canopy (which was underneath us!! Haha
We also saw a pair of howler monkeys, probably the closest we’ve ever seen them, when they decided to use the hanging bridge instead of the trees as a little shortcut, and literally came within a metre of us as they walked past us! So cool!
We spent 2.5 hours walking all the hanging bridges, some of them twice(!), until closing time. Then we decided to walk back into town rather than take the free shuttle, in case we got to see more wildlife… The decision paid off and we saw emerald toucanets from the road (but didn’t have chance to snap a pic), and a few more Motmots.
We got back exhausted from the walking, and cooked our own dinner to save some money before getting an early night ready for the big day!
Our room was quite small here in Monteverde, and didn’t really have anywhere to put our bags or clothes, but after our scorpion incident in Laguna Apoyo, we made sure to pack all our clothes away zipped up in our closed bags on the floor… Or so I thought…. Seems when Dave got in bed he just left his shorts on the floor….
We got a super early night, I was so tired, but then woke up again at 10pm after just a few hours. I was very thirsty, and Dave, ever the gentleman, offered to go down and get me some water… He put his pants on and instantly flinched!! He said there was something in them which stung him. He got his torch out, but couldn’t see anything, so put a different pair on and went downstairs…. Thinking he might be going crazy…
In the morning, in the light of day, we both inspected the shorts… Dave slowly pushed them outside the room with the umbrella, and then he shook them. To our absolute HORROR, the biggest scorpion we’ve ever seen slowly crawled out of the shorts! It seems Dave had been stung the night before by this HUGE scorpion (and lived to tell the tale)!
Once we settled down from the scorpion horror, we got ready for the day. This was the day I’d been waiting for, we were visiting Monteverde National Park, which is supposed to be one of the best places in the world to see the Resplendent Queztal, a bird I have been trying to see since Guatemala! They live here year round, but March to May is supposed to be the best time to spot them, as it’s when they are nesting, so if you know where the nest sites are, you can wait in hiding to see if they come and go with food for the chicks. Apparently they are particularly hard to just spot in the canopy, since their bright green plumage and red bellies camouflage so well with the cloud forest environment and red bromeliads.
We got to the park at 8:30am, we wanted to get there earlier, since quetzals are most active between 6-8am, but breakfast at our place was only from 7am and the shuttle to Monteverde only went at 8am… I was still hopeful though, and at the entrance to the park I asked if they knew of any active quetzal nests. The girl pointed and said, down the first trail to the left about 30 metres!! Thirty metres??? What?! I thought it would be deep in the park. But sure enough, about 30 metres down the trail were some people with binoculars trained on the forest… And right there was a hole in the tree…
We waited probably 3 minutes and then the male quetzal appeared 😊 he flew to a nearby branch and posed for us, then went off in search of food and we lost him. We waited for another 5 minutes and he came back to the nest, disappearing into the hole!
We’d been in the park a matter of minutes and already seen a Quetzal. I was SOOOO happy 😄
A sign near the nest said to remain quiet and to avoid lingering near the nest site more than 10-15 minutes so as not to disturb the natural behaviour, so when he didn’t come out again after a few minutes we decided to move on a return later in the day. What a magical experience, and we’d only just started!
We walked several of the trails today, basically in a big loop, and at the start of the day we saw many other groups all with guides and spotter scopes, some of which were quite noisy, but as the day progressed, the park got quieter and quieter, and we ended up spending all day here.
Not long after the first quetzal sighting we heard another quetzal in the trees. Then…. We spotted him! It was a juvenile male, still with the bright plumage, but not quite with the long tail feathers yet. He posed in the tree above our heads for a few minutes before moving on!
We also saw many other birds, but mostly thrushes and nightingales. And when the park was still busy in the morning, many of the guides we passed allowed us to look through their scopes, which were often focused on nests in the trees. It seemed to be nesting season for a lot of birds here.
But even without too many wildlife sightings, the forest was still magical, as all cloud forests are. There’s something really mystical about them. A lot of the paths are dark, totally shaded, and between the trees is a dense covering of cloud and mist. And everywhere you look is green, there’s basically no bark on show at all, as every inch of the trees is covered in moss, vines, orchids, bromeliads, and air plants or pothos plants. The only differing colours being the orchid flowers and the deep red bromeliads.
We walked to a view point, but all we saw was cloud! And then we continued our loop, spotting agouti and coatis through the trees, and the occasional hummingbird flying low over our heads.
We stumbled upon one coati very intent on foraging near a fallen tree right by the path. He was a lone male and wasn’t interested in us in the slightest, just continued foraging and walking between us whilst he looked for the best site to dig through the loose soil.
The walk was about 6 hours before we finally reached the start again, and we quickly headed back to the Quetzal nest, but there were now LOADS of people gathered here staring at the nest, some talking loudly, others with their mega cameras set up on tripods pointing at the nest… We waited a few minutes and decided to continue along the path away from the masses. We walked about 200m further along the path and away from all the crowds til we couldn’t hear them any more… Then…. I saw the male quetzal in the trees. Perched not too far from the path, perfectly visible, and we had him all to ourselves ☺️. It was INCREDIBLE, and I couldn’t believe I’d spotted him. We stood and watched him in silence for about 15 minutes whilst he preened himself and had a chill. I couldn’t have asked for a better day, it was perfect, even more so that I spotted him myself 😇
We left the park, but the birding wasn’t over just yet, as we headed to cafe colibri (hummingbird) on the way back. Here we saw 6 different species of hummingbirds on the feeders, and they were kind of habituated I guess, as they got SO CLOSE to you, and were not phased in the slightest by your presence. We stayed here for quite a while haha!!
What an amazing day! We finally got the last shuttle home and just collapsed in bed! We had to do this all again tomorrow!! Haha!
The next day was another early start, today we were visiting the Curi Cancha Reserve, next to Monteverde, but slightly different biomes, more of a dry forest than a full on cloud forest. This place was supposed to be EVEN MORE mega for birds. Lots of quetzals, monkeys and the famous yet elusive three-wattled bellbird – a type of cotinga with a bizarre and unique call, it usually perches on the highest branch and makes a noise like an electronic buzzer, a loud “Bonk!” Followed by barely inaudible (because they are so high pitched) electronic sounding squeaks. This was our main bird we were on the look out for today…
We got the shuttle to the park entrance, but the difference between here and Monteverde is that this is a private reserve. I asked for information about quetzal nests and they said there are none, so we should get a guide otherwise we wouldn’t see anything… The guide was over £100! So we left with no quetzal info, we think they were gatekeeping the info so we would get a guide 😞
However, we did see less here than we’d hoped. We saw white-faced capuchin monkeys (a lot and several times), Agoutis and loads of wrens, thrushes and hummingbirds. But for most of the day, that was about it… The park was a lot sleepier, but fortunately also quieter with humans too, and we barely saw another person all day. Which meant we had the forest to ourselves.
On the last trail, on our way back to the entrance basically, we heard a few long tailed manakins lekking (the ones we saw in Nicaragua), we could hear them all around, but despite our best efforts of following our ears, the forest was just too dense to see them.
Then we heard the iconic “BONK….. squeak, squeak” there was a bellbird about! We chased the sound until it was so loud, but again the forest was too dense. I couldn’t see anything…
I’d read that they like to perch on high tree tops, often dead trees or sparse branches, so I was scanning them as best I could. I tried to see it for about 30 minutes, it was calling the whole time. But no joy…
We walked to a Mirador instead, where we heard tonnes of keel billed toucans, but again, didn’t see any. Although I did see a punk rocker woodpecker here hammering the nearby tree, and some amazing mini hummingbirds, which I think were scintillant hummingbirds, with bright gold throats. It was definitely starting to pick up as the day went on!!
We could still hear the bellbird, but decided to give up and headed away… Then… I saw a bird hopping in the top of a very high dead tree. It was the direction of the sound. It was hopping to face different directions, almost dancing. And it had the same silhouette of the bellbird. It was so high and hard to see in the light, but I’m sure it was the bellbird!! 🥳 I was made up! What a great end to the day!!
We decided to walk back from Curi Cancha since the road is very scenic and you can see all the way to the Pacific ocean and the Nicoya Peninsula, but of course the heavens opened on our walk back… The afternoon rains here are like clockwork and it’s rained every afternoon so far. However, it’s not cold, in fact the rain is quite warm, and doesn’t usually last too long.
We absolutely loved this region of Costa Rica, and after Biotopo Del Quetzal in Guatemala, Mombacho in Nicaragua, Mashpi Ecuador and here, I can safely say that cloud forests are my favourite ‘land’ biome (yeah, maybe 2nd favourite after coral reefs 😉). They are so magical and teeming with life. I hope we can visit more!
Travel Alchemist 
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