No homework needed: Learning life lessons in the lush jungles of Costa Rica

There should be a word—there probably is, in German—to describe what happens when you find out your favorite tropical bird eats the eggs of your second-favorite tropical bird. Until my guide Jorge drops this bombshell, it had been an otherworldly walk through Monteverde’s cool, damp cloud forest.

“Yes, the toucan likes to eat the quetzal eggs,” Jorge Marín Leitón tells us. If you’re not familiar with either, they are probably Costa Rica’s best-looking birds. By ‘they’, I mean the males, for in the animal world, the onus is usually on the boys to get their make-up right. The male quetzal, officially known as the Resplendent Quetzal (so the pressure is really on), has a deep-red chest, feathery aquamarine neckline, and glorious green plumage on its belly and tail—which can be up to three feet long. Even take ’em-or-leave ’em non-birders go mad for a quetzal.

The toucan, on the other hand, eschews elegance for outright madness. A bold and bonkers-looking bird with a colorful, oversized bill, it has a playful nature—think, toddler playing with its dinner—and has become something of a ‘mascot’ for Costa Rica. It’s impossible to return home without at least one toucan-shaped item.

But the toucan shouldn’t need to eat quetzal eggs… It shouldn’t really be in the quetzal’s habitat. But not only is climate change affecting the high-altitude cloud forest where quetzals reside, the toucan’s lower-altitude habitat is becoming increasingly dry, forcing some species to higher (in some cases, lower) elevations. That means competition for food and shelter—and new predators.

This very tangible connection between climate change, conservation and habitats is an easy lesson learned, even on vacation. But it’s not all doom and gloom. This is a country with a plan.

Jorge, better known as ‘George of the Cloud Forest’, as his Instagram account and brand goes by, is a naturalist tour guide and wildlife illustrator. Like many guides I’ve met in Costa Rica—and people not working in tourism, for that matter—conservation is in his blood.

It’s no surprise he’s friends with our tour leader, Marvin Araya Salas. Like Jorge, he’s an avid birder, fellow naturalist and an action-oriented individual who’s keen to invite his travelers into his worldview.  Marvin has guided all over Costa Rica including small-group Intrepid Travel trips such as the nine-day Premium Costa Rica I’m on: While ‘premium’ doesn’t guarantee more sloth sightings, you do get very nice hotel beds, more included meals and experiences, and some decent downtime.

“There’s been too much human intervention and deforestation,” Marvin tells us. “I’m a positive person, but on some issues, there’s no return. Many organizations buy land to protect it, but it’s not enough. We need action now, from everyone, to see a reaction in five to 10 years.”

There aren’t many ecosystems like the cloud forest left in the world, adds Marvin. Cloud forests form one percent of Costa Rica, and are genuine biodiversity hotspots for wildlife, trees and orchids. Jorge tells us this habitat has more orchid species (around 600) than the USA and Canada combined, plus over 400 bird species—half of all Costa Rica’s 900+ bird species—and over 100 species of mammals. Basically, a lot.

Despite the stats, it’s not so easy to see wildlife in abundance in Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve, so a guide is a must. Jorge reminds us of being respectful in this fragile habitat. “We belong to this earth, it doesn’t belong to us,” he says. “Don’t litter, don’t use your camera flash on sensitive creatures—some micro-organisms would never recover—stick to the paths and listen to your guide.” He adds the last with a twinkle in his eye. Perhaps knowingly, for two of the group later do get lost, briefly, including my photographer partner.

This ethos is in keeping with Intrepid’s own policies. “We work with World Animal Protection to create a set of animal welfare guidelines which all our trips are audited against and we rolled out an animal welfare toolkit,” says Intrepid’s senior product manager, Jenny Gray. “We encourage and welcome anyone in the industry to use the resource to help implement more animal-friendly practices.”

On our night hike, the group is treated to the sight of a sleeping toucan and a glimpse of a quetzal. Jorge explains how the quetzal likes to nest inside the same tree trunk each year, how it eats the wood for nutritional benefits, holds it in its stomach, then vomits. This is the kind of intel I’ve come to the cloud forest for. I attempt photos but there’s no point—if there’s ever a time to be mindful, it’s on a night walk. After the following morning’s trek, we head to the hummingbird feeders by the reserve’s café and gift shop. Costa Rica has around 50 hummingbird species, all found here bar the mangrove hummingbird, and now, we see a few in action. The feeders are a ‘free bar’, giving these fast flutterers—they flutter their wings around 60 times a second—a sweet fix on tap.

With 29 national parks forming 25 percent of the country (plus wildlife refuges, protected zones, wetland areas/mangroves, forest reserves and biological reserves), and a renowned ecotourism model, how has Costa Rica achieved what it’s achieved? For one thing, the country doesn’t have an army and is part of a club of 39 non-militant nations (depending on how you define that: Costa Rica has no military, but its police include paramilitary units trained by the US and Colombia). Following a bloody civil war, Costa Rica de-militarized in 1948 under José Figueres Ferrer, sold its weapons to neighboring Central American nations, and brought in free universal healthcare.

The impact of that, from a mindset perspective as much as financial, is huge.

“While I went to a simple school, environmental education was part of teaching,” says Jorge. “Money wasted around the world on armies, we invest in education, uniforms, shoes, computers. Environmental education should be mandatory everywhere—that’s what has provided continuity here.”

It’s “not all peace and love,” as Marvin says, but it does avoid vast defense bills and more on education and healthcare. Costa Rica isn’t a perfect nation—how many are?—but it has set the bar high on certain issues. Primary education is free and compulsory, and secondary school is free although not mandatory. I think to my home nation, the UK, or to the USA, India, or Russia, where the idea of no-army seems incomprehensible, but also where military pride and patriotism is embedded in the national psyche.

You can feel and see the denseness. Plants grow on plants, plants grow on trees, trees grow on trees—wherever anything thinks it has a chance of growing, it seeds and sprouts in hope.

It ties in neatly to Monteverde’s own story as a tourist hub. In the 1950s, Quakers, known for being pacifists and environmentalists, arrived in town from the US, where many men were being called up to fight in the Korean War. Numerous families refused, with some people jailed for several months. In searching for a new home, a country that had recently abolished its army held great appeal. In a Goldilocks-inspired move—the Pacific North was too dry and not good for crops; the South too rainy and not good for dairy—Monteverde called.

But the town flourishing comes with a caveat. Reliant on a dairy farm economy until ecotourism came along, farming has its share of consequences. “The main enemy of the cloud forest is café con leche,” says Jorge.

Coffee and milk?

“Yes. This elevation is the best climate for coffee and milk production, but it’s a slow process and uses a lot of nutrients,” he says. “Monoculture is the enemy of the lowlands—here, it’s caffeine and dairy.”

Monteverde is one of the world’s most studied cloud forests. According to The Guardian, the climate crisis is drying out this habitat. “Hummingbirds, vipers and other species may disappear,” says Marvin. Even in the rainforest, only five to 10 percent of light reaches the ground so everything is trying to grow upwards—it’s a constant battle in the natural world. The golden toad, Monteverde’s symbol and declared extinct in 2004, is often cited as an example of global warming on the habitat’s amphibians.

“Today’s a dry day for Monteverde,” says Jorge. “People say it’s too cold or windy to be tropical.”

There are 16 types of forest in the country, so how do we define a habitat? “Humidity. Amount of rain. Altitude,” says Marvin. “Cloud forests have high humidity, plenty of rain, and are usually at the tip of a mountain—they’re a bit like an island so everything inside grows that way.”

It’s this moisture in the cloud forest that keeps everything green—even the name ‘Monteverde’ translates to ‘green mountain’. But climate change is affecting this habitat and, in recent months, it’s been experiencing a drought. “If you’re a lizard or snake, you adapt,” says Marvin, “but we need to ensure more species aren’t forced into unfamiliar habitats. I’ve been visiting for eight years and have seen many changes.”

On the hanging bridges where you can cross the cloud forest from a height, you can feel and see the denseness. Plants grow on plants, plants grow on trees, trees grow on trees—wherever anything thinks it has a chance of growing, it seeds and sprouts in hope. The forest gets darker as the leaves get bigger—and the competition is tougher. Before the second-last bridge, we climb inside a hollowed-out strangler tree that’s been kitted out inside with ropes and footholds, before taking in a final view over this extraordinary location ahead of a lunchtime casado—traditional Costa Rican lunch of rice, black beans, plantain, salad, tortilla—and cold beer with our group before rolling back, well-fed and watered, into the minibus.

If Monteverde is a Costa Rica ‘must’, so is Arenal volcano, three-to-four hours away by car/minibus around Lake Arenal. En route to its lava fields for a sunset walk to the volcano’s viewpoint, we stop at Arenal Vida Campesina for an organic farm tour. The family farm focuses on promoting sustainable agriculture practices while also preserving generation-long traditions such as sugarcane milling. Ecotourism isn’t just about flora and fauna; it’s a holistic approach that also centers culture, traditions, community, and food heritage.

You see this everywhere. Marvin stops at a roadside stall and shop by the Rio Chirripo, Fruteria Krystal, that’s run by the Vindas family who are pleased to see tourism return. Here, our group is treated to a smorgasbord of local fruit: Creole orange, pineapple, sweet mango, sour mango, green mango with hot sauce, sour guava, starfruit, and guanabara or soursop. The packed table is yet another reminder of the abundance and fertility that nature provides.

Almost seven percent of Costa Rican territory is technically under 24 Indigenous territories, but a large percentage are not Indigenous-owned.

The near-perfect dome of Arenal looks regal at golden hour. The volcano’s last major eruption was in 1968, destroying the small town of Tabacón, and killing 90 people. Reports said many local people survived because they were buying groceries in the nearby town of La Fortuna. On our walk to the viewpoint, we spot an eyelash pit viper—pretty if you like snakes—a yellow curly-wurly creature wedged into a tree, with eyelash-esque features. Another tree is host to two toucans, which receive the lion’s share of the camera clicks. Later under the night sky, at Ecotermales, one of several hot spring baths and pools around La Fortuna, we relax our muscles, tired and sore from minibus rides and short but hot hikes before retreating to our hotel, Lomas del Volcán, where views of Arenal await us the next morning.

Of all these stories of conservation, one is often missing. A UN report in 2021 saw concern over 40+ years of non-compliance by the State of Costa Rica where the Indigenous Law says it’s obliged to return Indigenous lands belonging to eight Indigenous peoples, land owned or occupied by non-Indigenous people. Indigenous peoples form around 2.4 percent of the population with just over 100,000 defining as Indigenous from the 2010 census.

While international conventions say Indigenous groups have a right to be consulted on projects that affect them, successive governments have failed them, from land grabs to wrongful ownership, and some instances have led to violence. Almost seven percent of Costa Rican territory is technically under 24 Indigenous territories, but a large percentage are not Indigenous-owned.

According to this Open Government Partnership report, the Bribí in eastern Costa Rica have been chased off their land, seeing their homes and crops burned. A Bribí leader, Sergio Rojas, said, “There’s no reason for our people to live like that when we have an ancestral home which is ours not only by tradition but under the Indigenous Law, so we organized an effort to take it back.” 

En route to the northern Caño Negro wetlands from Arenal near the Nicaraguan border is the Reserva Indigena Maleku, one of the few remaining Maleku Indigenous communities. Indigenous people make up around two percent of the country’s population, but these groups face several issues. Most only attend school for under six years, and only 65 percent undertake formal education. Access to internet is lower in these communities—15 percent versus 63, and unemployment affects half. Remote locations, poor resources, language issues and exclusion from decision-making (their right to vote only came in 1991) are all contributing factors.

While we don’t visit the community on this trip, I speak to Elias Elizondo Castro, a naturalist and guide from the Maleku community, afterward. He agrees that Costa Rican governments rarely take Indigenous communities into account when forming ecotourism plans. “We need to continue re-securing our lands,” he tells me. “If we achieve this, we can reforest to protect the water sources and for the animals to return to their natural habitat. Our ancestors did not know how to read and write, and that’s why so much land was seized.” The hope is that as voices become stronger across all groups, Indigenous concerns and land rights will be addressed, both retrospectively and going forwards.

The Caño Negro wetlands are sublime. Our group, often in animated conversation or fits of laughter, falls silent as we pass fields of yucca, plantain, sugarcane and papaya on, in a live, mesmerizing slideshow. A boat ride into the gallery forest—a forest corridor along rivers or wetlands—reminds us again of the country’s rich biodiversity. Monkeys, iguanas, caimans, toucans, bats, piano birds, and common basilisks all vie for our attention, and our local guide María Rebeca Paniagua Barboza, known as Rebeca, is a pro at spotting the small and the wonderful.

It’s a peaceful float along the waterways of the Rio Frio for a couple of hours. Rebeca points out the stumpy, boat-billed heron, the main predator of baby turtles, and we hear the racket of the howler monkeys. “You’ll find 25 to 30 hanging out in the same tree,” she says. “Their digestive system is slow and they’re a bit like teenagers—they look for food, then poop and sleep!”

“You can’t protect or love what you don’t know. Because children are taught about our environment, we grow up with that mindset.”

- George of the Cloud Forest

It’s refreshing to see a female guide too. I ask Intrepid’s Jenny Gray about this: “Our existing Tour Leaders do an excellent job at attracting new recruits who are keen to come and work with us,” she says. “We’re excited to have four new female leaders joining us this year. Around 30 percent of our leaders across Central America [not just Costa Rica] are female and we’d like to see that closer to 50 percent.”

Rebeca tells us how the howlers keep their distance from the curious, playful, white-faced capuchin monkeys, whose diet includes iguanas. In fact, Marvin adds, the capuchin monkeys are so brazen, he once saw a group prey on a rainbow boa—unsuccessfully. They know all the jungle hacks though, such as sucking water from a bromeliad or palm, and are sometimes partial to a seafood platter thanks to their ability to use rocks to break the shells.

Further south in Costa Rica’s famous coastal rainforest is Manuel Antonio National Park, the country’s most popular national park. Here, overtourism is a more pressing issue, with long, peak-season queues and sometimes-crowded walkways. A guide is compulsory, but with a good one, it’s (relatively) easy to see two- and three-toed sloths, white-faced monkeys, anteaters, and iguanas. It’s a world away from the emptier, more rugged trails of Monteverde though, as you crisscross well-marked walking trails towards the two sweeps of golden beach where most visitors end their visit.

Our guide Josué Castro has been guiding for 14 years. He tells us Manuel Antonio is a secondary-growth forest “because of bananas,” citing the dominance of bananas in Costa Rica’s land use. The nearby town of Quepos had electricity 100 years ago because of a banana company and its need for infrastructure. Monoculture is rarely a good thing though, causing a decrease in biodiversity, excess use of land and sometimes, over-use of chemicals.

Josué’s keen eye spots a three-toed sloth mother and baby. It’s our group’s first up-close sloth sighting and the excitement is palpable—this slow-moving, often-sleeping, half-smiling, real-life soft toy is usually top of most wishlists.

We see beautifully camouflaged lizards and cascaded helmet iguanas while blue mariposa butterflies flitter about. White-tailed deer, ocelot, and even puma are known to roam these forests, but sightings are rare. Birdlife is easy to come by even by our hotel, Si Como No, with its sweeping views over the rainforest canopy. Over breakfast, we hear squawking macaws and at night, one of the group spots a kinkajou, a nocturnal creature related to raccoons and coatis, perched on a telephone wire. The rest of us miss out as we’re sipping margaritas on a hotel terrace, but you can’t have it all.

Judging by the photos on my phone and our group’s beaming smiles on the penultimate day, it’s been more than a good taster of Costa Rica’s highlights and an insight into how ecotourism is integrated into the experiences. It seems early intervention is its signature move. I think back to Jorge, he of the cloud forest. “You can’t protect or love what you don’t know,” he had said. “Because children are taught about our environment, we grow up with that mindset.”

I’d also had something of an environmental education. I’d learned everything is even more layered than I already thought, why habitat protection is so key, and how we need to remain inspired by our travels by staying connected to the outdoors in our own backyard. I’ve even learned a lesson in forgiveness: I no longer bear ill will to the quetzal-egg-eating toucans. I hope they can rely on their own habitats and let something else—who should be higher up—eat the eggs.

Not even Costa Rica, for all its rich biodiversity, wonderful wildlife, and world-famous ecotourism credentials, can escape the global realities facing it. However, one thing was loud and clear: There are people willing to go out of their way to protect the earth, celebrate its beauty, and ensure they retain as much of what’s left as possible, and it shows.

I recall my conversation with ‘George of the Cloud Forest’ about the impact of no army. Later, he’d smiled and said, “Actually, we do have an army—it’s blue and white.”

I tried to work out what he meant. “That’s the color of our school uniform,” he told me. “That’s the Costa Rican army—our children. Education has everything to do with the success of a nation.”

More info

The writer was hosted on Intrepid Travel’s nine-day Premium Costa Rica tour which visits the capital San José, Arenal, Caño Negro, Monteverde and Manual Antonio and includes premium accommodation, experiences, tour leaders and guides.

***

Adventure.com strives to be a low-emissions publication, and we are working to reduce our carbon emissions where possible. Emissions generated by the movements of our staff and contributors are carbon offset through our parent company, Intrepid. You can visit our sustainability page and read our Contributor Impact Guidelines for more information. While we take our commitment to people and planet seriously, we acknowledge that we still have plenty of work to do, and we welcome all feedback and suggestions from our readers. You can contact us anytime at hello@adventure.com. Please allow up to one week for a response.