The misty Santa Elena cloudforest

Shrouded in mist and only accessible by the bumpiest roads you may ever set wheels on, the neighbouring mountain communities of Monteverde and Santa Elena are the most visited destinations in Costa Rica. 

Bird-watchers and nature-lovers brave the bone-crunching roads in droves, lured by the two adjacent cloudforests reserves of Santa Elena and Monteverde. To the untrained eye, these two reserves may look pretty similar –all moss-covered trees dripping with epiphytes, glistening ferns, lianas and stranger vines – but in fact they are two very different ecosystems that lie on separate sides of the Continental Divide.

A hiking trail through the cooler Monteverde Reserve leads to a spectacular viewpoint that actually straddles the Continental Divide. On a clear day it is possible to see west to the Gulf of Nicoya in the Pacific and east to the thick virgin forests of the Caribbean slope. The Monteverde Reserve is home to more than 2,500 plant species, 500 butterfly species and 400 species of birds, of which the quetzal – the obsession of all Central American birdwatchers – is the prized sighting. In addition, more than 100 species of mammals live here. Hiring a park guide with well-trained eyes and sophisticated binoculars is a sure-fire way of spotting local critters.

Both the Monteverde and Santa Elena reserves offer guided night hikes, where, armed with a flashlight, you can observe the noctural shenanigans of frogs, spiders, roosting birds and snakes. There are a bunch of other private nature reserves in the area, including the Children´s Eternal Forest (a 22,000-hectare reserve established with money raised by school children the world over) that offer excellent night hikes.

But the Monteverde and Santa Elena areas offer far more than just muddy walks in the forest. Zip-line canopy tours, which you can find in just about every one-pulperia town in Costa Rica, started right here in Monteverde. Competition is fierce, with no less than five companies in town who will hook you up to lofty steel cables and let you zip through the treetops over rivers and waterfalls.

Other time wasters in the area include two insect museums (one with live creepy crawlies, the other with dead bugs pinned to the wall), hanging bridges, orchid gardens, art galleries and excellent exhibits dedicated to live snakes, bats and frogs.

Visitors can also tour nearbycoffee farms, sample creamy cheddars in the local cheese factory or rip through the countryside on gas-guzzling, frog-squashing ATVs.

If you´re thoroughly natured out, be sure to check out Monteverde´s newest cultural offering – a history museum which traces settlement in the area from pre-Columbian times to the influx of American Quakers in the 1950s.

And if you´ve been in Costa Rica a good while and are sick to the stomach of eating rice and beans, beans and rice and rice and beans, Monteverde and Santa Elena have between them, some of the best international restaurants in the country.