Monteverde Cloud Forest and Coffee Tour Shore Excursion

Monteverde Cloud Forest and Coffee Tour cancelled due to weather. Guide replaced this tour with something called 8 in 1-Best of Costa Rica and it went well. Visited a monkey farm which seemed to be little more than stopping at someone's home to view the monkeys and coatis the family apparently cares for each day. This was fun as the animals were quite friendly, eager to interact with us visitors. Many good photo opportunities with the monkeys on our shoulders, backs and heads enjoying the pieces of banana we were giving to them. Then we stopped at a fruit stand and enjoyed pineapple, papaya, watermelon, and cane juice. Then we moved on to a crocodile viewing area next to a highway bridge and saw a number of big crocs basking along the shoreline. When that was completed we got on a cart pulled by a tractor and were taken to a small dock where we boarded a crocodile safari vessel for a 90 minute ride along the Tarcoles River where we saw some amazing birds...herons of several species, pink spoonbills nesting in trees, abut 50 to 60 pelicans also perched in trees, and a huge croc basking on the beach with his mouth open. We were so close we could count his big teeth! After that we enjoyed a Costa Rican lunch with black beans, rice, fish and chicken. After lunch we went to a beautiful scenic lookout on the side of a mountain which gave us a great view of the coastline. Here we also saw scarlet macaws and a toucan. We made a stop at a souvenir stand and we met the guides wife and young son. We returned to Puntarenas for a quick trip around the city which was mostly closed due to it being Sunday. Guide Adonys was special and we would highly recommend this tour to anyone.

It was a great tour with 8 of us in a van with a guide and driver. We had a sunny day in the cloud forest and, unfortunately,didn't see any wildlife. We were disappointed that the coffee plantation was closed due to storm damage and that we were not told that ahead of time. They offered us a tour thru the butterfly enclosure at the cloud forest instead which was interesting, but we picked this tour because it included both the cloud forest and coffee plantation. One thing to be aware of is that the trail thru the cloud forest is probably 2-2.5 miles with both hills and steps, which was more than one of our group expected. The included lunch was generous and tasty.