It has rained often these past few days. The hot, humid tropical air feels sticky in the airways, much like the clothes on my body. The ground is saturated with water, and the borrowed wellington boots on my feet sink deep with every step. Only grudgingly, with a loud squelch of protest, does the mire release them for another laborious stride. I follow Misa, my indigenous guide, along a barely discernible track through Costa Rica’s dense primary forest. The short, stocky man is leading me to the final adventure of my three-week journey through Costa Rica: a night in what is surely the country’s most spectacular treehouse.
Biodiversity galore
Together with Colombia’s Chocó region, Costa Rica is considered the front-runner among the most species-rich places on Earth. The small Central American country, only slightly larger than Switzerland, is home to one in every 20 of the planet’s animal and plant species. By comparison, only around one in 260 of the Earth’s animal and plant species hails from Switzerland. This wealth of species springs from the country’s singular geography, which allows for a vast array of microclimates: Costa Rica lies nestled between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific, divided lengthways by the Cordillera de Talamanca, a mountain range rising to 3820 metres.
Well planned is well travelled
A journey through this land of boundless possibilities needs careful planning if you are not to lose yourself in its cultural and ecological heritage. Not wanting to share my experiences with the crowds, I decide to hire a car, which lets me travel largely beyond the tourist bustle. Independent travel is easy and safe in democratically governed Costa Rica.
My first stop is a charming bed and breakfast called Lucky Bug, some 130 kilometres north-west of the capital San José. The small, German-American-run guesthouse sits on Lake Arenal, Costa Rica’s largest inland body of water. At the lake’s eastern end rises the mighty, active Arenal volcano. It is not merely an attraction in itself: together with the geological forces that created it, it has produced a biological and scenic diversity unmatched anywhere in the world within the smallest of spaces. The region’s tourist hub lies a few kilometres further on in La Fortuna, where countless activities can be booked, from hikes along the volcano and visits to hot springs to breathtaking rainforest walks.
To the Pacific and into the mountains
Via the famous Monte Verde cloud forest reserve — which, for all its touristic renown, is absolutely worth a visit — I reach Costa Rica’s west coast and catch my first glimpse of the Pacific at El Roble. From here the route follows the coast southwards. Numerous towns with plenty of hotels invite you to linger along this dream coastline. I choose the beautiful Clandestino Beach Resort near Parrita, spending several days in a detached bungalow on a deserted, unspoilt beach, with the very finest of food. From here I make several day trips to the little-known Rainmaker Conservation Park, where I can explore the primary rainforest entirely untroubled by tourist crowds. Especially spectacular are the suspension bridges, which allow you to stroll through the rainforest canopy.
After a stopover at Uvita and a visit to Marino Ballena, a marine national park, I turn off the coastal road at Dominical into the foothills of the Cordillera de Talamanca and, via the Carretera Interamericana Sur — the southern stretch of the Panamerican Highway — reach the Paraiso Quetzal Lodge, a birdwatching specialist perched at around 3000 metres above sea level. I linger here for a few days to photograph the mystical quetzal, also known as the bird of the gods. In earlier times, only Maya chieftains were permitted to adorn themselves with this bird’s magnificent tail feathers, which grow up to 80 centimetres long.
Caribbean flair
Since there is no way across the central mountain range in southern Costa Rica, I have to head up via Cartago almost as far as San José to reach the other side. I explore the rainforests on the Caribbean slopes of the Cordillera before travelling via Siquirres to Puerto Limón, where I taste the salt water of the Costa Rican Caribbean for the first time. Turning east, I follow the Caribbean coast and after a few hours reach Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, where I check in at the Lizard King Hotel Resort. From here I spend several days savouring this effervescent little party town right on the Caribbean Sea, before undertaking the final adventure of this journey a few kilometres further on, hard by the Panamanian border: a night in the rainforest canopy.
After a good hour’s march through the primary forest, Misa and I arrive at the foot of a jungle giant behind which an entire football team could hide unseen. The taciturn Misa points a meaningful finger upwards. I look up and see, in the crown of the centuries-old sapodilla tree, the Nature Observatorio hovering above us like a green, disc-shaped UFO. As my guide straps me into the climbing harness and I glance up once more, it dawns on me just how high eight storeys are. And that I am to climb up there on a nylon rope — for there is no other way up.
The climb proves every bit as strenuous as expected, but after a few minutes I am at the top and instantly rewarded for my efforts: the view, stretching for kilometres across the deep-green canopy of the rainforest to the turquoise glitter of the Caribbean Sea, which meets the radiant blue sky on the horizon, is breathtaking.
A night in the rainforest
The great advantage of watching wildlife from a treehouse lies in the eye level: only from up here can parrots, monkeys, sloths and the like be observed without risking an acute crick in the neck. It is four in the afternoon. The rainforest is at its liveliest in the morning and evening hours, and soon life begins to stir in the branches around me. A troop of howler monkeys passes by, and two keel-billed toucans land on the bare branches of a dead tree just a few metres from the treehouse. Almost simultaneously, other bird calls strike up on the opposite side of the platform, and I spot a chestnut-mandibled toucan in the branches and, one tree further on, a collared aracari feasting on the fruit of a fig tree.
Soon the deafening squabble of dozens of Amazon parrots rings out all around me, and on the neighbouring tree a greenish-beige ball of fur unfurls: a large three-toed sloth scratches itself at length, then begins its leisurely ascent to nibble at the green foliage in the treetops. This close to the equator, dusk is brief. The setting sun stains the horizon deep red for a few minutes; then darkness swiftly settles over me and the forest. Monkeys, Amazon parrots and toucans have fallen silent, and the hour of the night spirits begins.
I retreat beneath a mosquito net on the upper floor. In the pleasantly cool air of the canopy, I listen to the rainforest’s nocturnal concert. The lovelorn calls of the tree frogs, the steady drone of the cicadas and the yearning cries of the nightjars accompany me to sleep.
This article appeared in MEN issue 1/21 (November 2021).
