Day Eleven Monteverde

We drove from La Fortuna to Monteverde today. Knowing that we would have a 3-4 hour ride in dirt roads (think rocks and potholes), up and down hillsides, and back and forth on the winding roads, I took an anti-motion sickness pill because I knew I wouldn’t make it without getting sick. I had run out of Dramamine, so a fellow teacher gave me one from his WalMart supply of no-name brand. Let’s just say that my non-drowsy Dramamine formula does not compare to the WalMart stuff! I was knocked out for close to 4 hours and never noticed that the bus stopped twice for bathroom breaks. So, my ride felt like it was nice and short, while a few teachers were green at the gills when we arrived at Monteverde.

Monteverde is located in Puntarenas and is surrounded by huge land reserves, the most famous being the Cloud Forest of Monteverde. What I did not know and found fascinating was how the Monteverde village was settled. In 1951, a group of American Quakers, pacifists and opposed to the military draft in the US (a few were actually jailed in the US for being objectors), moved to Costa Rica, a country that had abolished its army in 1948. They settled in MV and developed the famous Monteverde Cheese Factory which sells $50 million worth of cheese each year. Today, a few of those original Quakers still live here, as do many of their descendents who have since married Ticos (people of Costa Rica). MV is a small community that still reflects a North American influence. After checking into our hotel, El Establo (translates as “the barn”—but definitely NOT a barn), we attended a lecture by Mark Wainwright, a British naturalist who has resided in CR since 1991, and is a famous author of several field guides. A field guide and instructor of tropical ecology, Mark also is famous for having rediscovered the green-eyed frogs after they were assumed extinct for over 20 years (due to changing climates and fungal infections). His lecture was very interesting as he shared excellent slides of the plants and animals of the MV cloud forest.

A few tidbits: one third of the 3000 or so vascular plants in the cloud forest are epiphytes (plants that grow on others), there are more than 500 species of orchids (more than anywhere else in the world), approximately 800 species of trees (10% or 90 of which are avocado species), there is a great variety of humming birds (30 types) and therefore many colorful flowers, specifically designed for humming bird beaks. The forest, with an average temperature of 64 degrees F, is too cool for many snakes and other reptiles, however there are hundreds of thousands of insect species. The Caribbean side of the cloud forest is caused by Trade Winds that carry moisture and the Pacific or downside, where conditions change rapidly. The “Christmas bird count” a count done around the world boasts 350-450 different species. In comparison, a teacher shared that in his Vermont town, the count was 75 different bird species. I know some birders do this in northern Maine, but I don’t know their count.

We also learned about the problems this valuable and fragile forest is experiencing: water, trash, pollution, and other social issues. One of the major problems is the lack of biological corridors between various reserves around the country and even the ocean. The MV cloud forest is like an island surrounded by deforested areas. Animals require these corridors to move from one area to another and allow them larger territories, but with all of the deforestation that has occurred in CR since the 1940’s, there are large isolated areas that are still in need of connectors. For example, one single jaguar requires 40 thousand hectares of land! All of the plants and animals are interconnected in these forests and removing one often cause many other species to be doomed. For example, the three-wattled bell bird, of which only a few hundred exist, eats avocados from the cloud forest trees, and is responsible for dispersing these seeds. Other animals that eat these avocados drop the seeds in their feces, where the tree is already located, without dispersing them too far.


We took part in a night walk in the Cloud Forest Tuesday evening. We had been told to pack flashlights or head lights, so we were prepared to walk in the dark. I can say it now that it’s over: this was the activity that I dreaded the most. Spiders and I aren’t friends, and even though I can tolerate insects, I usually don’t go looking for them. My farm stay prepared me (a bit) to accept a few bugs, but I kept my mouth shut (literally!) and followed the leader (right on his heels, actually!). I can’t tell you how many spiders I saw crawling on the ground, and it seems that I’m the only one who would see them, since I was looking out for them. We did see some pretty neat insects though, including a clicker beetle that has two glow-in-the-dark spots and firefly larvae, which blink just like the mature fireflies. We have fireflies in Maine, but I had never seen the glowing larvae. We saw spittle bugs and their spit piles, various crickets, a tiny frog, and other organisms. One teacher in another group had fire ants crawling up her pants. I was happy to have taken part in this trek, but I was also relieved it was finished. There was something spooky about being in a noisy rainforest, in the dark, always paranoid that some insect would fall on my head from the forest canopy or jump up from the plants.