Monteverde Cloud Forrest
Saturday – one week of vacation already passed, but it has been a great journey so far! We left the farm early in the morning to visit the Monteverde Cloud Forest. The Biological preserve is the first private area for the conservation of wildlife founded in Costa Rica in 1972. The preserve houses an astonishing 2.5% of the world’s biodiversity, 50% of Costa Rica’s flora and fauna and 10% of its flora is endemic – all on an area of 328 hectares.
We recommend arriving early in the morning and either pre-booking a tour or hiring a guide on site. We hired a guide on site since the tours were all booked out. The forest is so dense, without a guide you would probably not be able to see any animals or learn about the unique attributes of the forest. A cloud forest is characterized by a low-level cloud cover at the canopy level, which causes an abundance of mosses covering the ground and vegetation. Only 1% of the global woodland consists of cloud forests. Definitely bring warm clothes, temperatures were only 12 degrees Celsius during our walk. We spotted a number of birds, a tarantula, a green viper snake napping in a tree and learned a lot about the vegetation.
Before leaving we stopped at the humming-bird Cafe where you get the chance to observe humming-birds from close by.
Heading to the Pacific Coast
On our way to our next destination on the pacific coast, we stopped at a very local spot for lunch: La Feria de Guacimal, which we only found by accident. We were the only tourists among locals and later learned that this was a community farmer’s market with traditional marimba music every Saturday. We loved the atmosphere and freshly cooked food by local women, while supporting a local community.
After a couple more hours on the road, we reached our destination for the next week: El Mangrove Hotel. Since we were pretty exhausted from the previous year and had a lot of experiences to reflect upon, we decided to stay here fore seven nights and just let it all hang out. The hotel was located at a quiet beach, and a truly beautiful space. Hotel rooms were split across three separate areas, which made the hotel feel cozy and small and not crowded at all. Our room basically consisted of two areas, a “classic” bed- and bathroom and an outside are with a hammock which was separated from the outside only by a huge fly screen to enjoy the warm weather without any mosquitoes. We finished the day with watching the sunset at the beach, a drink at the bar and a dinner at the beach restaurant.
The next days we spent with working out, hanging by the pool and finally having time to read. We enjoyed pineapple-ginger drinks and guacamole during the day and dinner at the hotel or in Playas del Coco. We tried La Dolce Vita and Sabor A Mexico and can recommend both! Franzi did some snorkeling at the beach, we did stand-up paddling in the morning and kayaked around the bay.
Exploring Costa Rica’s underwater life
On March 3rd, it was our four-year anniversary. We decided to do something special and went scuba-diving. We did two dives of 45 minutes each. The experience was very different than e.g. in Egypt where Franzi got her diving license. There are no Corals, only rock formations. We saw large schools of fish, devil rays, eagle rays, moraines and a bunch of plankton. The water currents under water were quite strong and had a high fluctuation in temperature, which was very interesting. After a fulfilling time on the boat, we had lunch at Soda La Teresita on the beach and spent the rest of the day enjoying the sun and reading before a nice dinner at the hotel.
On our last day, we went snorkeling in the bay again and saw a bunch of colorful fish. We indulged in a cocktail in the pool and took a walk at sunset after watching some Iguanas in the trees and on the beach. The tide was low, and we were getting melancholic about leaving already while capturing the surroundings with our cameras. To finish the amazing vacation, we had dinner at Soda Mediterranea and said goodbye to Costa Rica with fresh Tuna Steak and homemade pasta.
Back home to NYC
On the day of departure, we packed our suitcases and spent the last hours in the sun by the pool before heading off to the airport. We returned our rental car and took off in time, which got us back to New York Saturday evening.
On Sunday we unpacked our suitcases, did many loads of laundry and ran some errands. We brought the sun from Costa Rica and enjoyed the spring weather with drinks outside. While we were enjoying the Sunday, we got a call from Franzi’s brother Lukas and his girlfriend Eileen to announce their engagement!! We knew he had planned to propose, so we were extremely excited to hear the story and celebrate together! The happy news ended our weekend perfectly and now it was time to get back to the real world.
