I think this is a first: we have no photos of Santa Elena. Santa Elena is a small town sandwiched between National Parks in the highlands of Costa Rica and we got there by a combination of van from La Fortuna, boat across a lake and then another van up up into the hills to Santa Elena. The distance is apparently only 25km from La Fortuna as the crow flies but the alternative is a very roundabout road trip that takes about seven hours over rough dirt roads. It’s (perhaps unsurprisingly) a very touristy route but, on a clear day, the scenery is absolutely stunning.
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From the lack of photos you can read that it wasn’t a stunning day plus we were travelling away from the stunning scenery up into the mountains. Doh! If you’re ever planning to travel to these places in Costa Rica, make sure you travel down from Monteverde to La Fortuna, not the other way around!
From the lake a steep, dusty bumpy dirt road led to Santa Elena through multitudes of coffee plantations, none of which were particularly picturesque but interesting nonetheless if you’ve never seen coffee growing (which we hadn't).
Santa Elena itself doesn’t look that touristy; it’s such a tiny town nestled in the folds of forested hills with only a small amount of tar sealed road and none of the flashy hotels and restaurants that usually go with the tourist industry. However, look a little closer and it’s clear that tourism is what makes this place go round. Agencies and guesthouses offer every kind of tour imaginable, mini-buses ferrying people around to various activities zip all over the show and the place is inundated with travellers and tourists all wanting to try out a zip-wire experience or go hiking in the National Park – and we were here in the quiet season. Of course everything costs and, of course, people pay and in some cases the charges continue to escalate (the cost of hiking in one of the National Parks has almost doubled from last October). If you’ve got the money and zip-wire tours, hanging bridges etc are your thing then it’s a great place to spend some time.
Having not seen frogs in this trip we did visit the ranaria (technical term for frog house) where many of Costa Rica’s stunning frogs were in decent sized, well-kept areas. The one we really went to see, the red-eyed tree frog with amazing red eyes and blue sides, was asleep. All we saw was green as his eyes were closed (green eyelids covering the stunning red eyes) and his green legs were clasped to his side, covering the stunning blue streaks.
We went hiking early the next morning in the cloud forest of Santa Elena National Park. I had imagined much of Costa Rica to be very lush and green like parts of Brazil but apparently 80% of the country had been cleared of it’s forest and only now is the secondary forest making a comeback. Where we hiked was similar to other forest we’d hiked though in other countries; wet, mossy, cloudy and very atmospheric
but the highlight was seeing a brilliant green Quetzal bird on the way back down to Santa Elena, rarely seen by visitors. I was trying to take a photo of this bird and failing miserably. I couldn’t for the life of me get the camera to focus on either automatic or manual focus setting. Then this American chap lent me his superb binoculars and I saw that this gorgeous sleek looking bird had an incredibly fuzzy head! Despite that pointer, the photos didn’t come out that great but it was a very beautiful bird with brilliant green and bright red feathers. The female was even pretty and had bright blue feathers down her side.
Heiko, Euan and I had traveled to Santa Elena together so we all spent time playing cards in a cafe when the wind was howling and it was pelting down with rain and playing yet more rounds of cards after dinner. We were sorry to have to say goodbye but his holiday was over and he was heading back to Zurich.
From the highlands of Santa Elena and Monteverde we headed to Alajuela (a town near the San Jose airport) for one night before we flew out the next morning, bound for Seattle, USA.
View Untitled in a larger map
From the lack of photos you can read that it wasn’t a stunning day plus we were travelling away from the stunning scenery up into the mountains. Doh! If you’re ever planning to travel to these places in Costa Rica, make sure you travel down from Monteverde to La Fortuna, not the other way around!
From the lake a steep, dusty bumpy dirt road led to Santa Elena through multitudes of coffee plantations, none of which were particularly picturesque but interesting nonetheless if you’ve never seen coffee growing (which we hadn't).
Santa Elena itself doesn’t look that touristy; it’s such a tiny town nestled in the folds of forested hills with only a small amount of tar sealed road and none of the flashy hotels and restaurants that usually go with the tourist industry. However, look a little closer and it’s clear that tourism is what makes this place go round. Agencies and guesthouses offer every kind of tour imaginable, mini-buses ferrying people around to various activities zip all over the show and the place is inundated with travellers and tourists all wanting to try out a zip-wire experience or go hiking in the National Park – and we were here in the quiet season. Of course everything costs and, of course, people pay and in some cases the charges continue to escalate (the cost of hiking in one of the National Parks has almost doubled from last October). If you’ve got the money and zip-wire tours, hanging bridges etc are your thing then it’s a great place to spend some time.
Having not seen frogs in this trip we did visit the ranaria (technical term for frog house) where many of Costa Rica’s stunning frogs were in decent sized, well-kept areas. The one we really went to see, the red-eyed tree frog with amazing red eyes and blue sides, was asleep. All we saw was green as his eyes were closed (green eyelids covering the stunning red eyes) and his green legs were clasped to his side, covering the stunning blue streaks.
We went hiking early the next morning in the cloud forest of Santa Elena National Park. I had imagined much of Costa Rica to be very lush and green like parts of Brazil but apparently 80% of the country had been cleared of it’s forest and only now is the secondary forest making a comeback. Where we hiked was similar to other forest we’d hiked though in other countries; wet, mossy, cloudy and very atmospheric
but the highlight was seeing a brilliant green Quetzal bird on the way back down to Santa Elena, rarely seen by visitors. I was trying to take a photo of this bird and failing miserably. I couldn’t for the life of me get the camera to focus on either automatic or manual focus setting. Then this American chap lent me his superb binoculars and I saw that this gorgeous sleek looking bird had an incredibly fuzzy head! Despite that pointer, the photos didn’t come out that great but it was a very beautiful bird with brilliant green and bright red feathers. The female was even pretty and had bright blue feathers down her side.
Heiko, Euan and I had traveled to Santa Elena together so we all spent time playing cards in a cafe when the wind was howling and it was pelting down with rain and playing yet more rounds of cards after dinner. We were sorry to have to say goodbye but his holiday was over and he was heading back to Zurich.
From the highlands of Santa Elena and Monteverde we headed to Alajuela (a town near the San Jose airport) for one night before we flew out the next morning, bound for Seattle, USA.
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