Monteverde Lodge & Gardens is a lodge that works as a base for the whole mountain. Its activities page sends guests to three reserves: the Cloud Forest Reserve, Curi-Cancha and the Santa Elena reserve.
Curi-Cancha is the one birders should know about. The lodge describes it as open ground for spotting birds and says the reserve takes at most 40 visitors at a time, so the morning is quieter than at the big gate.
Guided hikes and a night walk are part of what the lodge arranges, and the lodge's page says the Cloud Forest Reserve holds 400 bird species. A birder gets three habitats from one bed.
The lodge's activities page lists excursions to the Cloud Forest Reserve (the page says 400 bird species), to Curi-Cancha, described as open ground for spotting birds with a limit of 40 visitors, and to the Santa Elena reserve, with guided hikes and a night walk. Feeders and a bird list of its own are not stated.
Photo: Monteverde Lodge & Gardens
Monteverde
A place perched in the mountains with infinite things to do for nature lovers and discerning travelers!
★★★
A cloud forest lodge with gardens at Santa Elena that sends guests to three reserves: the Cloud Forest Reserve, whose page names 400 bird species, Curi Cancha, with open ground for spotting birds and a limit of 40 visitors, and Santa Elena. Guided hikes and a night walk.
From our three Monteverde pages, all within five kilometres: the Three-wattled Bellbird and the Resplendent Quetzal that bring people up the mountain, the quetzal with a guide, all year. The bellbird is a regional endemic.
On the same walks the Lesson’s Motmot, Collared Trogon and Keel-billed Toucan, and two more regional endemics, the Prong-billed Barbet and the Spangle-cheeked Tanager.
| English | Scientific | Spanish | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Three-wattled Bellbird | Procnias tricarunculatus | Campanero Tricarunculado | Regional endemic |
| Resplendent Quetzal | Pharomachrus mocinno | Quetzal | |
| Prong-billed Barbet | Semnornis frantzii | Barbudo Cocora | Regional endemic |
| Spangle-cheeked Tanager | Tangara dowii | Tangara Vientricastaña | Regional endemic |
| Lesson’s Motmot | Momotus lessonii | Momoto Coroniazul | |
| Collared Trogon | Trogon collaris | Trogón Collarejo | |
| Keel-billed Toucan | Ramphastos sulfuratus | Tucán Pico Iris |
The lodge is close enough to walk into town for dinner, yet the rooms face the forest and the planted gardens rather than the street. Rooms run from 32 m² Cotinga rooms opening onto the lawns to the 43 m² Quetzal Suite, set apart with a large balcony and an outdoor bathtub. All have pillowtop beds, bathrobes, Wi-Fi and nightly turndown, and the tap water is drinkable throughout. Breakfast is at El Jardín, in a converted greenhouse, cooking with local farm produce, and our About text describes a lounge with an open fireplace for cool Monteverde evenings. A heated pool, rare in this area, is the afternoon option, and walking sticks are provided for the trails.
Meals. El Jardín, Costa Rican, American and European dishes with local farm ingredients, breakfast, lunch and dinner, room service. Rooms are sold bed and breakfast.
Perfect for: a couple where one birds the gardens at dawn and the other wants a warm pool and dinner in town.
Curi-Cancha, the private farm beside the Monteverde reserve where our birding mornings climb from pasture into primary forest: the birds, lodge and trips.
See the placeThe Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, founded in 1972: the bellbird and the quetzal with a guide, the lodge whose trails walk into it, and our trips there.
See the placeSanta Elena, the quieter reserve at Monteverde, run by the public high school board since 1992: a guided quetzal morning, the lodge we use and the trips.
See the placeNo fixed trip stays here yet; we build it into a custom trip.
Want to add a luxury stay to your trip? See every hotel we represent on CostaRica.Org (opens in a new window). We plan birding lodges and beach resorts in one trip.
Tell us the birds you want, your dates and how you like to travel, and we will come back with a first itinerary: the lodges in the right order and how many nights each one really needs. That first version is just a place to start.
Or call us: 1 (800) 996-1139 from the US and Canada, +506 4052-2140 in Costa Rica.
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