Costa Rica and Monteverde
As I said it in my last post, the entry into the beautiful country “República de Costa Rica” was interesting =) but first some facts about Costa Rica:
Costa Rica is a small country in Central America. It is bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, and Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around 5 million people in a land area of 51,060 square kilometers.
Indigenous languages are spoken in communities such as the Bribri, the language of the people of the Talamanca region. English is often spoken as a second language.
Costa Rica is committed to preserving the beauty and diversity of the country through the development of national parks. One fifth of the country is covered in forests. The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve is the largest cloud forest in Central America. Costa Rica is home to over 2,000 species of trees and 9,000 different kinds of flowering plants.
There are over 200 species of reptiles, the majority of which are snakes. There are many brightly colored toads and frogs, including the poison arrow frog and the beautiful red-eyed tree frog. The country is also home to hundreds of mammals including bats, and insects, such as vibrant butterflies and leaf-cutter ants. The national flower is the orchid. There are over 1,200 species of orchids in Costa Rica.
I left Bocas del Toro and I was looking forward to Costa Rica. The next chapter, my tenth country and I am still in time!! But I didn’t want to stay in this country too long because it is very expensive. That is a minus point in Costa Rica, you can hardly do anything on your own. You have to pay for anything you want to do., The prices are juicy and for most activities you have to book a tour. Costa Rica is also called the Switzerland of Central America. The capital – San Jose, Monteverde and the cloud forest are destinations I want to see. I wanted to do the other, “better” activities in cheaper countries like Nicaragua, Honduras or El Salvador. For example: Shark diving, climbing volcanoes, seeing lava and much more diving =) But first of all, I had to cross the boarder…… and this is not an easy task =)
Additional requirement for entering Costa rica: you need a booked accommodation and an “exit ticket”. Of course I didn’t have either =)
But what do you have friends for =) I got my confirmations via screenshot the evening before. So I had an accommodation in San José and my “plane-exit-ticket” to Bahamas =) hahahaha I had a queasy feeling at the border, but everything went well. So….. Bienvenido a Costa Rica =)
It was a little bit crazy, because up to now I had no plan of the capital, no accommodation, no food and water and really no idea what to do. However, I met a German group during the bus trip. Of course, the girls had already booked and prepared everything. So i just joined them =) and it was a good idea!
The whole situation regarding corona was also very tense. That was the reason why I stayed in the hostel for the first few days and checked up the news. I also met there some good friends in this time. Different personalities – tourists, interns, animal rights activists and my mentor – the hostel owner. Very, very interesting discussions everywhere and with everyone. You have to be open =)
We also discussed a lot about corona and what I should do. After much deliberation, I decided, that I would continue my journey and go through with it. I informed my parents that I would stay in Central America and continue my journey =) of course, everything turned out differently, but more about that, later. I decided to visit Monteverde. From there into the unique world of cloud forests.
The bus took about four hours, it was a nice drive through the nature of Costa Rica. In the hostel I met two girls, we formed a nice group of three, the three musketeers =) Monika from Norway and Krista from Idaho. We got along very well!! I also felt very, very safe with them because one girl is a doctor who specializes in fractures and the other one is a physiotherapist. So I felt safe and was prepared for my next back break =) We spent the next few days together to look at the cloud forests. As you can see on the pictures, a unique, beautiful world. We had all together a real good time! Thanks Monika and Krista for the unforgettable time together!! I hope we will see us again, wherever!!!
I will give you some short interesting facts about the cloud forest:
A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest montane, characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level. Cloud forests often exhibit an abundance of mosses covering the ground and vegetation, in which case they are also referred to as mossy forests.
Only 1% of the global woodland consists of cloud forests. A total of around 736 cloud forest sites have been identified in 59 countries.
The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve consists over 10,500 hectares. It draws roughly 70,000 visitors a year. The Reserve consists of 6 ecological zones. 90% of which are virgin forest. A high biodiversitiy, consisting of over 2,500 plant species (including the most orchid species in a single place), 100 species of mammals, 400 bird species, 120 reptilian and amphibian species, and thousands of insects, has drawn both scientists and tourists alike.
So, just enjoy the wonderful photos of a wonderful world.
After these beautiful days, things went pretty quickly. The situation was rapidly deteriorating. I met a German friend, Tilman. We thought about the situation and discussed what to do. After careful consideration, we decided to start our journey home. It was one of my hardest and saddest decision but in retrospect it was the right one. Everything went very quickly. But more on that in the next “last” post about journey home!
Have fun during reading my review and of course have fun with the wonderful landscape of Costa Rica!
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