SANTA ELENA
This preserve has several loop trails. Open from 7-4, $5 with a student ID. I arrived at 11:00 and had a ride back at 3:30, so I chose the 2nd-longest loop just to be sure I made it back in time. Turns out the maps greatly overestimate how long the trails take to finish.

Encantado is a 2.5K trail, and fairly easy. The trail was well-maintained, lots of "stepping stones" to keep from getting muddy. I spotted a few birds and an armadillo before the near-constant drizzle turned to heavy rain.

After finishing the Encantado loop, I took the Bajo (-something) trail, which was only 1.5K, but made up for lack of distance with difficulty. It was probably worse due to rain, but there were fewer steps, just mud, steep and uphill most of the way. It was not a loop, so at the end I caught half of the Youth loop to come back to the beginning. That trail was practically flooded! So glad I brought two pairs of shoes to Costa Rica! The Youth trail also had an observation tower, which I climbed for no real reason other than that it was there...I knew with the rain there would be nothing to see! It was cold, wet, windy, and slippery—best to only try it when dry.

Granted, rainforests look especially beautiful in the rain, it's just hard being IN it. Next time I'll have to try the Caño Negro (3.5K) trail—apparently it was the muddiest and most slippery.

MONTEVERDE
Monteverde is also open from 7am-4pm. It was $6 with student ID, I believe. Not sure why, but I enjoyed Monteverde a bit more. It rained even harder and there were probably more tourists. . . albeit still very few because it was low season. Something about it just seemed more quintessentially "rainforest" to me.

As before, the rain was too much for the mammals, but I arrived at 7am to see a decent number of birds. Spotted a toucan! There were loads of beautiful butterflies. . . before the rain, of course. Monteverde's trails are not loops, so one trail runs into another. If it hadn't been raining I would have tried more, because one trail was supposed to be frequented by monkeys. But with the downpour, I satisfied myself with going around the circle, about 6km total. The last trail goes along the river, and is a bit scary. The Rio trail is very narrow in parts, and simply drops off into the river far below. Near the end is a small waterfall, nothing on the scale of Fortuna of course.

If you have time, see both. I was in Monteverde for four days, so I had time for a lot of hiking. But if you can only see one, I guess I would go with Monteverde.

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