Monteverde
3 days in monteverde, Costa rica: monteverde cloud forest, Jungle night tour and zip lining
day 1
Arriving in Monteverde
To get to Monteverde, we were picked up from our hotel in La Fortuna at 2pm. We’d booked the jeep-boat-jeep shuttle with ILT, and at $30 per person, I’d highly recommend this. We had about 45 minutes in our first bus, before reaching Arenal Lake, which is stunning:
The boat took about an hour, and then we were met by our jeep that drove for another hour before taking us to our lodge in Monteverde. This was definitely the best journey of our trip, as it just seemed to fly by as we watched the sunsetting over the beautiful cloud forest and mountains. We also stopped at a small cafe just outside Monteverde, where we had a smoothie and snapped some more pics.
We arrived at Quality Cabins Monteverde in pitch black, and met our incredibly helpful host, Tracy. There are four cabins deep in the forest, each built by her dad, and they’re all completely glass and beautiful to be inside. We were looking forward to waking up and seeing exactly what it all looked like!
That night, we went for dinner at the treehouse – one of the most famous restaurants in the area. It’s really cool, a whole half inside/half outside restaurant built around a big colourfully lit up tree. It was busy with live music, so there was a great vibe. Food was OK, but not exceptional. Good enough for us to return on our last night though!
Day 2
We woke up early to these amazing views from our bed(s), and got ready for our morning guided tour of Monteverde cloud forest.
Monteverde cloud forest was about 15 minutes away, a $10 cab ride (no Ubers in Monteverde!). When we arrived, it was absolutely pouring with rain, and we were a bit worried. But the tour was decent, we learnt a lot, although didn’t see much. There’s not as much wildlife in Monteverde, it’s mostly birds. We saw a quetzal (the symbol of Monteverde), a couple of green toucanets, and some other birds I can’t remember the name of! On reflection, I probably wouldn’t have paid for a guide here, it was our least exciting guided tour of the whole trip. But maybe we were just unlucky. Either way, you can hike the park on your own and go to the viewpoints, which we did afterwards and saw a gang of coatis. All in all we were at the cloud forest for 5 about hours in total and glad we went, as due to climate change and habit degradation, they may not be around forever!
That evening, we also signed up for a night tour. Now this was a lot of fun! We went with Kinkajou night tours, booked by Tracy from our lodge. Kinkajou night tours take out a lot of people all at once – there were probably about 5 groups of 10 of us, each with their own guide. This sounds like a lot, but it actually works out well. As all the guides are in touch with walky talkies, if one group sees something cool, they let the other guides know so you get a chance to see it too. This happened for us and we saw an opossum in a tree, as well as an armadillo! Our guide got the call, told us excitedly, “Follow me, fast, and quietly – we might see something!”. We also saw our first toucan (sleeping in a tree), and a snake and a couple of scorpions. We’d definitely recommend this night tour.
Day 3
Zip lining! Now, I’m someone who is very scared of heights. But I’d also done a lot of reading about the best activities in Costa Rica, specifically Monteverde, and zip lining came up a lot. So I decided that it had to be done, I was going to be brave. I spent some time reading the different reviews of the different parks in Monteverde (there’s a lot, much more than in La Fortuna, and we’d heard the zip lining was better in Monteverde). So we decided on Sky Adventures. Sky Adventures is the only zip lining park to use assisted breaking, rather than relying on your hand (with a glove on). As I was a little afraid and worried my brain wouldn’t work properly when hurtling at 60mph above the canopy, I decided this would be a more sensible choice. Some of the other parks also have history of accidents, although these obviously aren’t widely publicised. We just got this from reading reviews and talking to Tracy at our lodge. Sky Adventure seemed to have a great track record at being the safest, so, although it was a little more expensive than the other options, it was the best bet for us.
I’ve got to be honest. I barely spoke a word all morning out of fear. We booked for the 12.30 session after reading online about some people who had zip lined early in the morning and been met with lots of cloud cover! So their pictures were just them floating in white cloud. Luckily, this good advice meant the cloud and rain had cleared by lunch, and we had clear skies and sunshine. After a safety briefing, and fitting of our equipment, we had our photo taken and got to try the first zip line. I felt really safe, apparently the cables can hold two and a half tonnes. I know I’d eaten a lot on holiday so far but this should have been strong enough! You’re attached with two clips, and the staff ask you to “sit” before the let you fly. At this point you lift your legs off the floor and float – you can feel how securely attached you are. They hold you there for a few seconds, wait until it’s clear, and then off you go! The first zip line was quite low down, but still – the views were amazing! When I got off my legs were shaking but I felt exhilarated and knew I was going to go for the rest of the tour. This is the part of the tour where you can chicken out if you want to. After this point, the only way back down is to zipline your way back! One lady did leave the tour at this point. But we carried on to the cable car which took us up REALLY HIGH! Apparently, the views were amazing but I couldn’t bring myself to look around.
Once we’d soared over the canopy of the cloud cover, we got ready for the first proper zip line. This one was about 400m long. I switched off my mind and got on with it. Let me tell you, it was AMAZING! Often when I’m scared of things and do it, I’m just glad it’s over with and proud that I pushed through. But with zip lining, it was different, I actually loved the feeling of it. So exhilarating and the views were beautiful. I may have imagined myself falling a couple of times (can’t help myself), but to be honest, I just kept thinking – this must be what it feels like to be a bird. It’s a once in a lifetime experience that I doubt I’ll ever be able to recreate. For me, it was the views that made it, so I’m super glad that we had a clear day and time slot, without cloud cover.
There were another six zip lines after this. We did two in tandem, so me and my boyfriend together. This was because they were so long that they needed extra weight. So if you’re on your own you’ll most likely be paired with someone else. This gave us a great opportunity to get some cool videos.
At the end of the zip lines, just when you think you’re done…plot twist, you’re not! The staff then offer you the option of bungee jumping, or rappelling (basically being lowered slowly) down to the ground. I opted for the rappelling, which I personally. found easy and not scary at all. But because it was quite windy on the platform, I knew there was no way I’d do the bungee! My boyfriend, on the other hand, gave it a go. And despite screaming, he loved it, and wouldn’t stop going on about how amazing it was.
At the end of the session (about two hours in total), we had the option to pay $30 for some photos of our trip. I was on such a high that I said yes without really thinking about it. But looking back, this may not have been the best idea because they’d only photographed us on the first practice zip line, so there were no professional shots of us higher up – a bit of a shame. My boyfriend had captured some good footage with his GoPro though, and sky adventures offer this service too (a go pro attached to your helmet) and I would recommend this. Otherwise, you’ll just have to rely on your memories of this incredible experience.
We finished our day with a meal at Taco Taco, a Mexican restaurant that’s always packed – a testament to the food and service you get. We loved the drinks and burrotes (extra large burritos). I wouldn’t say the burritos were the best we had all trip, but they were certainly up there, and the service and atmosphere was great, so we went twice!
