Our journey to Monteverde from Manuel Antonio took around 5 hours and took us high into the mountains.
The temperature by comparison to the Pacific coast plummeted, bringing cooler fresh air, mist and rain, but it was still hot.
The Belmar hotel is just beautiful. It is as if it were built only from timber by craftsman whose passion for detail exudes from the highly polished and carefully scribed lines everywhere.
The hotel is high up in the mountains, an ideal location to explore this area.
The staff, food and rooms were perfect, practical, clean and homely, but you don’t come here just for the hotel.
I actually arrived here feeling unwell and found myself that night on a drip in my room to combat a stomach virus that resulted in me being dehydrated. That said Doctor Melissa was amazing, nursing me quickly back to health such that I didn’t miss out on any of the sites and tours.
At the rear of the property from our balcony we overlooked what looked like lavender. There were hummingbirds constantly collecting nectar.
These birds are sooo small, they fly very quickly between the flowers and so capturing great photographs of them was tricky.
On our first morning in Monteverde we made our way with our guide to the Curi-Cancha reserve, a cloud forest with trails, plenty of wildlife and some surprising but friendly residents.
We took the opportunity to go into the town and visited the Orchid Gardens followed by lunch.
Later that day we did a night walk in the cloud forest. Let me tell you that it was VERY dark and so we were all given torches.
The night is the best time to see certain insects, creatures and illusive nocturnal inhabitants.
We loved everything about Monteverde.
If you want to find out more about the Belmar, you can check it out here.
