Reserva Santa Elena

Introducing Reserva Santa Elena

Though Monteverde Reserve gets all the attention, this exquisitely misty entry, at 310 hectares just a fraction of that other forest’s size, has plenty to recommend it. While Monteverde Crowd…er…Cloud Forest entertains almost 200, 000 visitors annually, many of whom spend peak-season mornings waiting around to meet strict quotas before entering, Santa Elena sees fewer than 20, 000 tourists each year, which means its dewy trails through mysteriously veiled forest are usually far quieter. It’s also a bit cheaper and much less developed, plus your entry fee is helping support another unique project.

One of the first community-managed conservation projects in the country, this cloud-forest reserve was created in 1989 and opened to the public in March 1992. It is now managed by the Santa Elena High School board and bears the quite unwieldy official name of Reserva del Bosque Nuboso del Colegio Técnico Profesional de Santa Elena. You can visit the reserve office (645 5693; 8am-4pm Wed-Fri) at the high school.

The reserve is about 6km northeast of the village of Santa Elena. This cloud forest is slightly higher in elevation than Monteverde, and since some of the forest is secondary growth, there are sunnier spots for spotting birds and other animals throughout. There’s a stable population of monkeys and sloths, many of which can be seen on the road to the reserve. Unless you’re a trained ecologist, the old-growth forest in Santa Elena is fairly similar in appearance to Monteverde, though the lack of cement blocks on the trails means that you’ll have a much more authentic (note: muddy) trekking experience.

This place is moist, and almost all the water comes as fine mist, and more than 25% of all the biomass in this forest are epiphytes – mosses and lichens – for which this place is a humid haven. Though about 10% of species here won’t be found in Monteverde, which is largely on the other side of the continental divide, you can see quetzals here too, as well as Volcán Arenal exploding in the distance – theoretically. Rule No 407 of cloud forests: it’s often cloudy.

Last updated: Sep 23, 2008