Mars 2022 - Costa Rica - Monteverde, La Fortuna

Traveling to Costa Rica went a lot smoother than we expected. We had started early in the morning, taking a taxi from Popoyo to the border, in order to be sure that we would make it all the way to Monteverde in one day. However, while we were waiting outside the immigration office to get into Costa Rica, we met an American guy who lived in the country - Joe - who offered to give us a ride. At first he said he would drive us part of the way to reduce the number of buses we would have to take, but in the end he drove us all the way to our hostel! The road we took, which I guess was not the most common route, included some very steep dirt roads and had us going high up in the mountains - lucky for us he had a really good car! - and we got some beautiful views. On the way there we also stopped by the side of the road and he bought a bottle of vino de coyol for us to try, which is apparently a local specialty in the region which we were only passing through on the way to Monteverde. It's a palm wine, though with little to no alcohol, and the taste was something that could be likened with kombucha.

extreme touristing in Santa Elena

Our hostel was a little bit outside of the town called Santa Elena, with a very long and steep hill leading up to it, so we definitely got some good exercise those days. Monteverde and Santa Elena are quite high up, and the area is famous for its cloud forests (which we also visited in Honduras). Walking around in the small town, it seemed we had all weathers at once, all the time. It was usually windy, rainy and sunny, and there would almost always be a rainbow in one direction or another.

Our first meal in Costa Rica we tried some local things off the menu: empanadas, chorreadas (fried corn tortilla with cheese on) and tortilla aliñada (something like a cornbased "pancake", served with sour cream) and guanábana (soursop) juice! The guanábana was a favorite for me, and something we only saw in Costa Rica and a few places in Panama. That first afternoon we also went to a famous ficus tree in town, which has grown to look like a bridge and makes for cool photos.

chorreada (left) & tortilla aliñada (right)

the famous ficus root bridge

The next day we took a shuttle to the Santa Elena nature reserve, where the entrance fee is about half that of the Monteverde national park. We walked all of the trails, about 10km in total, mostly with our heads tilted back to scan the treetops hoping to see a sloth, or the quetzal bird. We didn't. But the forest was beautiful, and we did spot a few capucin monkeys and some hummingbirds. We had planned to walk all the way back to the hostel since the shuttle back was only at specific times, but then we were offered a ride by a passing car, which we happily accepted.

For a late lunch, we went to a soda, which is the name for a local, cheap restaurant. We ate casado, which is a cheap set meal: usually rice, beans, fried plantain, salad, and protein, and also includes a juice or other beverage.

The next day while strolling towards a lunch place, Valle brushed something off his neck and we wore both stunned when we realized what it was - a small scorpion! Later we found another one in our room, and our hostel owner assured us that it's not dangerous. Still, not something you want crawling around your neck. 

We decided to hike up to a viewpoint called Cerro Amigos. Along the way, and at the top if the weather is clear, you could see all the way to the coast. The road up was really steep, and when we reached the top it was unfortunately engulfed in clouds. Then we found another trail going down which went through the forest, which we were happy to explore instead of going back down the steep car road. We were treatet with beautiful cloud forest, just like in the nature reserve (but without the entrance fee), where we were completely alone. We emerged from the trail inside a huge resort area so it would not have been possible to find the trail from the other direction unless staying at that resort.

While not being an official restaurant, the owner of our hostel who used to work at a restaurant for many years would offer to make pizza for a reasonable price if asked. Tired from a day of walking, and not feeling like going down that steep hill in the dark and chilly wind, we ordered one for our last night. And it was so good! The owner also showed Valle some tarantulas by the side of the road (which I opted not to look at).

From Monteverde we booked a shuttle to La Fortuna - the most popular way to travel between the two places, as it also includes a one hour boat ride on the lake. It felt quite chaotic as there were a lot of people getting dropped off by the lake and a lot of different boats, and we didn't know which company or agency we were travelling with. But somehow it worked out! La Fortuna is a bit bigger than Monteverde, and more touristy. We didn't like it too much, and it didn't feel like it offered anything unique. Some years ago, the volcano near town was still active and thus was the main draw to the place, but currently it is not, and the top of the volcano is almost always covered in clouds. There are also several sloth reserves or areas where they do guided tours to see sloths (and other animals of course) but they can charge about $50 for a 1,5hour tour. We did see one sloth in a tree from the street as we walked past one of those areas, but we didn't feel like spending that money. (We also saw a lot more sloths in Cahuita, which you can read about in the next post!).

We had been recommended to hitchhike in Costa Rica as an easy way to get around, but we're not really used to it (and perhaps too Swedish?) and soon felt a bit awkward. We did manage to hitchhike some of the way to El Silencio, one of the cheapest hiking areas. We walked all of the trails and had a pretty nice day. We encountered a tour group that had stopped on the trail as there was a jumping pit viper snake occupying the path. Apparently very dangerous, we all had to stand back and wait while the guide slowly and very carefully poked the snake with a stick to get it to move away. We also saw a family of coatis running across the trail. 

On the way back we stopped for a quick bath in some natural hotsprings, though it was quite crowded. The next day we mainly walked around town, and in the afternoon we visited El Salto, a small waterfall with a rope swing, which was free. While there are more things to do in La Fortuna, many of them were quite costly. While the hike was pretty nice, overall La Fortuna felt like a place we could just as well have skipped.