The last 18 miles of the road leading to the Monteverde is full of ruts and potholes by design, and takes over an hour and a half to bump your way in. The locals like it that way, and they choose not to fix it because then it would be a little too easy then for tourists to visit.
That may not sound all that hospitable, but it illustrates the emphasis Costa Ricans place on conservation. And the cloud forest, which I visited prior to Covid as part of an Overseas Adventure Travel tour of Costa Rica, is indeed an ecological marvel worth saving –- and seeing. But you have to really want to go there!
So what exactly is a cloud forest? It's a rare kind of moist, high-altitude rain forest characterized by fog and low-lying cloud cover where plants actually grow on top of trees. The technical explanation is that “the combination of altitude, humidity and irregular topography creates a unique environmental situation where the clouds remain low for most of the year, preventing the breakthrough of sunshine, locking in moisture, and creating an atmosphere where plant activity is so high that they actually cover the trees.” The non-technical explanation? Lots of clouds and rain result in every inch of the trees from bark to branch to be covered by things green and growing. These epiphytes, as plants which grow on trees are called (pictured below), cover every branch and limb, creating a dense wonderland of greenery. Fifty percent of all the vegetation in the cloud forest lives on the tops of trees.
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