Hi. I'm in Santa Elena.
Today, EDP made friends with a tarantula.
It was an early start today with breakfast at 6:15 and a taxi at 7 to take us up to the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve for our guided walk through a cloud forest.
What’s a cloud forest? It’s a forest in the where the canopy is in the clouds. It’s an incredibly biodiverse forest because of the amount of moisture brought to it by the consistent cloud cover. In the case of the Santa Elena cloud forest, it’s on the continental divide so the winds sweep in from the Atlantic side and settle, forming clouds that sit in the forest, resulting in the equivalent moisture of TWELVE FEET OF RAIN a year. It’s pretty cool.
Anyway. Our taxi took us further up the mountains to the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve. There are 2 near where we are - Santa Elena and Monteverde. Santa Elena is less popular and a bit higher up in elevation. It’s also run in partnership with a local high school so students take part in caring for the reserve and part of the entrance fees support the school. Once it was time, our guide, Johnny, started us out in the parking lot where he was pointing out several lovely birds, including a bright red bird that he typically doesn’t see. Then, we tried to find a very rare frog that they thought was extinct until a few years ago. While Johnny spotted it, it snuck into the growth before the rest of us could. We also saw a very tiny frog that was almost purple in colour, sunning himself on a leaf.
Then, it was into the rainforest to see what we could spot. Johnny has been a guide for over 20 years and he was so good at spotting things. Over the course of our time with him, we saw lots of orchids, birds, a few frogs & other bugs, and perhaps the highlight for EDP - a tarantula. I ran for the hills when that fella came out of his little hidey hole. Once our tour with Johnny was done, we stayed in the forest for a bit to hike some of the other trails. Of course, without a guide, we didn’t see any wildlife but the surroundings were lovely.
Sadly, climate change is really affecting the cloud forest. Animals are having to go higher up than usual to find the climate they thrive in and that means some animals are being pushed out. But Costa Rica has been working to restore it’s natural environment - in the late 1980s, deforestation had taken coverage of the country down to 27% but now, with efforts to restore the natural environment, the country is nearly 60% forest again.
After leaving the cloud forest, we headed back down into Santa Elena for some lunch at an excellent taco place called Taco Taco. Obviously, I had fish tacos. And because it was a bit cool, spiced hot chocolate, which was delicious. Then, it was a bit of rest before our treetop dining experience.
Okay, so we expected this to really wow us because we saw photos. But wow, it really wowed us. Let me explain…
When we were talking to Julio and Sarah Joy, we said we often like to do a fancier meal at some point in the trip - something special & memorable. And they came back to us with the San Lucas Treetop Dining Experience, which was described as a 7-course tasting dinner in the treetops with only 8 tables, which looked to be fairly separate from each other. Happily, we found a little shortcut gate from our hotel onto the road that runs beside it, which saved us from having to walk all the way down to the bottom of the hill on the hotel’s drive just to turn around and walk right back up. We arrived a bit early but our server was already waiting for us at the entrance and led us down to the restaurant’s foyer. We got a little glimpse of the bar, reviewed dietary restrictions and added the wine pairing onto our dinner. Then, we posed the obligatory photo before being led down into our private glass pod in the sky.
PRIVATE GLASS POD IN THE SKY.
Each table is in its own glass pod, suspended over the forest with a view of town and beyond. And we happened to be the only table at our 5pm seating. While 5pm is early for dinner, it was recommended over the later seating so that you could watch the sunset. It was a bit of a cloudy night (but they all are when you are near the cloud forest) but we still had a lovely sunset to watch while we had a culinary tour through Costa Rica with a 9-course tasting dinner, each course representing a different province in the country. The food was incredible, showing off the best of each region. We had corn FIVE ways in one dish. We had coconut soup with lobster (or eggplant for those of us with shellfish allergies), we had puffed rice, we had TWO desserts! And a new wine with almost every course - with the last wine being TWO OUNCES OF RUM. We were stuffed (and a little tipsy) by the end but it was definitely memorable & special.
