Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

After doing nothing for nearly a week and a half we decided to get out of the house and take the parental units on a trip to Monteverde, a cloud forest in Costa Rica.  The road from the Pan-American Highway up to Monteverde is rumored to be the worst road in Costa Rica, so we decided to leave the Yoda Van at home and take a bus.  The buses in Costa Rica are super luxurious and the ride to Monteverde only cost $4.00 per person.  It would have cost us at least as much in gas to get up there and back, and possibly more wear and tear on the car, so the bus seemed like a good option.  The only drawback was the creepy Unabomber guy on the bus.  During the first half of the bus ride I observed his swollen facial features hidden behind his dark sunglasses and tucked under the brim of his John Deere hat.  During the second half of the journey he pushed his way to our section of the bus and I got a first row glance of his pimply cheeks and creepy stares.

The road from the Pan-American Highway up to Monteverde is spectacular and easily one of the top 5 drives we’ve been on since we left Seattle.  The drive was rolling green hills, mountains, rainbows, and beautiful vegetation.  My parents were troopers and we all stayed in a hostel in Santa Elena.  Although the elevation in Santa Elena was not that much different than Alajuela the weather had completely changed.  It was much cooler and windier and it was obvious that we were in a much different climate. 

The first night we went on a twilight walk.  We met in the forest at dusk, around 5:30 PM.  They armed us with flashlights and we were off to see wildlife and learn a bit about the forest.  For William and Julian it was spectacular.  For them there is almost nothing better than looking for animals and getting to hold a flashlight and shine into the forest.  We could have been anywhere in the world, but getting to hold and play with flashlights for 2 hours was super exciting.  Our guide was a nice, jolly fellow.  He had wide open eyes, a friendly smile, and a dark brown Richard Simmons ‘fro poking up and over his baseball cap.  He had a lot to tell and seemed genuinely happy creeping around in the forest. 

The only person more excited than William with his flashlight was my Dad.  He’s a rather quiet fellow, but he couldn’t stop talking during the entire time.  We saw spiders, tarantulas, a sloth, a viper and some birds.  The other couple in our group was a doctor and an architect and there was no shortage of conversation between us all.  By the end we were all talking amongst ourselves, not listening to our guide and blocking out the images of all the nasty wildlife we really didn’t want to know about in the first place.  I’ll be honest, Tarantulas are really creepy!

The next day Matthias and I went for a walk in one of the privately owner canopy tour facilities.  We didn’t do a zip line tour, but just opted for a walk along the bridges through the canopy.  It was a nice walk, beautiful forest, but it cost $20/person.  I still can’t believe we paid that much, but we figured we were there and had to make the most of our time.  That evening we went to a frog museum (really cool, but also overpriced) and were able to see all sorts of different species of frogs.  The real highlight was our last day when we went into the cloud forest reserve.  We took a guided tour and saw howler monkeys, more tarantulas and even the resplendent quetzal (which is THE bird to see in Central America). 

One way in which Monteverde differentiates itself (other than the weather) is in its prices.  It is crazy expensive!  I hate it when all people talk about is money, but for us it is absolutely a problem in Costa Rica.  We spent so much money during the 3 days we spent in Monteverde and the unfortunate thing is that I feel we got relatively little value out of the experiences compared to the prices.  I don’t mind paying to visit worthwhile attractions (especially if the money is going for preservation), but the amount you have to pay for anything in these parks way outweighed the coolness of the experience.  A lot of people fly down here for a week or two, have a bigger budget and can afford to “do it right” and spend a bit of money walking through the cloud forest.  We paid $56.00 US dollars for a damn walk in the woods and I find that insanely expensive, ridiculous and absolutely not worth it. 

I can’t really blame people here for charging prices tourists are willing to pay.  But this place is such a well-oiled tourist machine that even the coolest places are loosing their appeal for me.  We’ve been asked so many times how we like Costa Rica.  My honest answer is that this country is absolutely beautiful.  There is so much wildlife, beautiful land and it has so much to offer.  Costa Rica is also a very peaceful nation and it has done a great job preserving this land as well – roughly 25% of the country is protected.  It is really great to see such a responsible attitude toward preservation.  I just wish the swishing of the Visa cards, the “cha-changing” of the cash registers wasn’t disturbing the silence.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 5th, 2007 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Costa Rica. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.