|
WorldWide
Show me the monkeys! (page 2)
|
| Click map to enlarge |
The morning after getting shut out by the wild things in Monteverde, we decide to pony up
the colónes for a guided trip. Before our chaperone Jorge begins his spiel,
he surveys our small group and, like any true leader, critiques our footwear. “These
shoes are good,” he dryly observes of Jenny’s sneakers, “for a tennis court,
maybe.” Then he leads us down the muddy trails of the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve,
on the same mountain spine as Monteverde.
We quickly realize that Jorge sees both the forest and the trees — and a whole lot
more. He parses for us the tiramisùlike layers of the heaven-high canopy. He lifts
a patch of moss and has us peer — not too closely — into the wary eyes of a tarantula
in her earthen lair. He retells the murder ballad of the strangler fig, which wraps thick
vines around its spouse tree in a sometimes terminal embrace, leaving only the hollow latticework
column that rises before us. From the moist air, he plucks birdsong and names every elusive
vocalist. Farther down the trail, he reaches into the undergrowth and reveals, with a prestidigitator’s
flourish, an orange and black tree frog the size of a thumbnail, a miracle of miniaturization.
TREETOP RENDEZ VOUS
Getting there Air Transat (866-847-1112) flies to San José from
Montréal and Toronto. Air Canada (888-247-2262) also offers a variety
of flights to Costa Rica.
Staying there
The Costa Rican government’s
website is the best place to begin researching
itineraries and accommodations. We stayed at the Barceló Langosta
Beach Hotel, a beachside
resort situated near the funky surf town of Tamarindo rather than in an enclave of all-inclusives,
such as the overdeveloped Gulf of Papagayo. In the city of Liberia, Hotel
Guanacaste offers basic yet comfortable double rooms. The friendly English-speaking hosts can arrange
transportation and tours of nearby Santa Rosa, Palo Verde and Rincon de la Vieja national
parks.
Playing there
Renting a four-by-four can be both pricey and scary (Costa Rica has one of
the highest accident rates in the world), while navigating by public transportation will
prove frustrating to anyone short on time. Instead, try one of the convenient shuttle services
that connect major cities, beach towns and parks (www.costaricashuttle.com; www.costaricashuttleservice.com;
www.liberiacostarica.com).
The Monteverde and Santa Elena cloud
forests are
part of this transportation network. On the nearby Sky Walk you can stroll through the treetops
on suspension bridges. English-speaking guided tours can be booked for the Sky Walk at
the information desks of most parks.
|
We shouldn’t be surprised. For so many species to flourish in an area as compact as
Costa Rica, evolution has encouraged its critters to choose camouflage over cabaret — even
if it’s the latter that ecotourists long for.
Not everyone is so keen on the country’s eco-make-over, though. A few days later,
we hire a guide named Hugo for a hike through the dry forest in Santa Rosa National Park.
We pass a work crew repairing the park’s museum, a hacienda that was burned to the
ground by displaced hunters. The arson had been a cause célèbre in
this small nation, says Hugo, and while the culprits landed a long jail sentence, the incident
only underlined the competing pressures placed on ecosystems by farmers, poachers, developers
and tourists. To ease such problems, Costa Rica has received funding from the World Bank
to pay landowners not to saw down forests. Some parks, like Monteverde and Santa Elena, now
limit the number of walkers allowed on the trails each day; others, such as Playa Grande,
restrict visits to guided tours of at most 15 people per guide.
Getting off the beaten track has become that much harder. But Hugo welcomes the chance to
show off the hidden corners of his favourite forest. We follow him through a labyrinth of
narrow pathways, navigable only by the resident biologists, past bat caves and owl roosts — and,
yes, enough white-trimmed capuchin monkeys to shut me up — as he chronicles the natural
mysteries of Santa Rosa.
Then, in the middle of another dark wood, we confront a project of Blair Witch weirdness.
Spaced across the forest floor are squares of plastic that contain ritual scatterings of
twigs and bugs. Hugo explains that one of his colleagues is measuring the precise quantities
of insect dung excreted over these spots. It is another example, we realize, of the microscopic
dedication of many Costa Ricans to understand their natural environment — to see, if
you will, the forest for the feces.
Our time with Hugo is done, or so we think. But our guide has one more secret up his khaki
sleeve. He is heading to another park to count parrot nests and invites us to join him on
his afternoon expedition. In his four-by-four, he chauffeurs us north toward the Nicaraguan
border and then westward to the Pacific over washboard side roads, stopping only to joke
in Spanish with a few curious rangers about the “two blondies” in his back seat.
We arrive at a long crescent of sand framed by sumptuous greenery. Distant enough from the
resorts of the Nicoya Peninsula and off backpackers’ tick lists, the beach barely rates
a mention in most guidebooks. We are the only gringos, in fact, and we lounge for hours in
this pocket of postcard perfection.
Then, his parrot census done, Hugo emerges from the woods. Our guide has led us to paradise,
and he is ready to ferry us home again. We’ll follow him wherever he wants to go.
David Leach is a writer based in Victoria.
|
