Visiting a rainforest during the rainy season may sound interesting. Sure, you’ll avoid the tourists, but there is a reason why the tourist season is when it is… and that reason is, quite obvious to us now, to avoid the rain.
The rain tested us in a way that only parallel parking a manual vehicle on an incline in Casablanca has tested us before. Well, getting lost during the torrential downpour probably had a little more to do with it I suppose. Expert tip: if you are planning on getting rained on during your trip, make sure to allow enough cushion time in between activities for your clothes and shoes to dry out. Our hotel thankfully had portable heaters that we used to turn the bathrooms into mini saunas where our gear could dry. Even so, we still spent the entirety of our time in Monteverde damp.
Rain or no rain, we were hellbent on hiking. After checking into Koora Hotel, we decided to start with their onsite reserve, Reserva Aguti. They gave us a paper map of the trail, we put on all of our rain gear, and set off. We could handle some moderate drizzle right?
The hike started wonderfully. The giant trees covered in vines kept the drizzle at bay. Ethan had suddenly discovered his fear of ants on this trip. So, we kept on watch for leaf cutters and bullet ants along our path. We were really enjoying the beautiful walk when the rain started to pick up. Within a few minutes, the moderate drizzle turned into torrential downpour. We were hiking up a hill. So suddenly, our walking trails turned into streams. We were quickly soaked. We accidently left the paper map in the car and was relying on Jason’s phone for navigation, but we couldn’t risk getting Jason’s phone wet in the downpour and the service wasn’t working anyhow. Before we knew it, we were lost. We stumbled around in the rain for a while climbing over large broken tree branches and sliding down muddy hills all while everyone was crying and generally very miserable. By continuously moving downward, we made it out of the reserve in one piece although soaked to the core. We decided that was enough for one day. We would try again tomorrow.
Well tomorrow came and the rain didn’t leave. But we had plans, exciting ones! I had booked us a morning tour of the local coffee plantation. I love coffee, I wasn’t about to miss it. So, we leveled our expectations for the day with an understanding that we would be wet and headed out to brave the rain.
It rained a lot during the coffee plantation tour, and my camera didn’t like it. I began to worry that I ruined it forever. Everett also didn’t like it. I had to tend to a level five toddler meltdown midway through the tour. Ethan really enjoyed learning about the plantation though, and once I calmed Everett down, I did too.
We were already pretty wet, although not quite as bad as our hike from the day before. So, we decided to continue our day at the Selvatura Adventure Park. I was excited to visit this park’s hanging bridges. They also have one of the most famous ziplines in the world. While I explored the sloth and reptile exhibits with the kids, Jason had a chance to zipline in the cold rain. Our hike on the hanging bridges trail ended up being beautiful. It did downpour at the very end, but by this time we were very used to being soaking wet.
I will say I tested my camera’s waterproofing limits to the extreme on this trip. At one point, the controls started reading out random gibberish. The internal lenses were so full of steam, the autofocus was rendered useless. However, a night in our heated bathroom dried it out, and I haven’t had any problems since. As we left the parking lot of our hotel and started our road trip to the beach, the clouds cleared, the sun came out, and it was a beautiful day in the Monteverde Cloud Forest. We had missed it all by one day.
Until next time,
