Backcountry Birding

The clouds have closed in as my bus makes its way west from San Jose. Out the window I can see several different kinds of pretty spectacular flowering trees; the most common one seems to be the vivid orange Poró Gigante which has no leaves right now for the most part, just bunches of tangerine-colored blossoms.

I think the crop being grown in some of these fields is sugar cane but I’m not sure. So far I’ve only been able to identify a few Roadside Hawks and some Tropical Kingbirds, while most of the doves and smaller birds remain a mystery.

I landed in San Jose at about 1AM last night, slept in an airport hostel and spent the day walking around near the Avenida Central after catching a ride with the hostel’s driver to downtown. I picked up a couple postcards and some stamps from the world’s most impressive post office:

I caught the bus from Estación 710, and it’s been a very comfortable ride.

I’ll arrive in Santa Elena after dark tonight, and I’ll write a little more in this post then. Here’s what I understand to be true about the history of the area, a summary of what you can find on this webpage

The first folks to start protecting this region in recent times were Quakers from Alabama who settled here in the 1950’s and started setting up dairy farms. They decided to leave the forested headwaters untouched to protect their water supply. In the 60’s, American scientists started visiting Monteverde because of the resident english-speakers (and deforestation of the surrounding areas began to accelerate). By the 80’s researchers and Quakers came together to form the Monteverde Conservation League with the goal of slowing or halting deforestation in the forest and surrounding areas. This was also apparently the dawn of the ecotourism boom in Costa Rica, so the rest took care of itself.

Fast forward to this afternoon, and I’ve arrived in Santa Elena.

I checked in at my hostel, Pensión Santa Elena, and grabbed a long-awaited dinner just up the street at Bar Amigos, which was delicious:

Tomorrow morning I’ll be visiting the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve and I simply cannot wait. It’s like going to sleep the night before Christmas…