Monteverde

People farmed and hunted in these mountains long before the Spanish arrived; archaeological finds in the wider Arenal area point to villages that rose and declined over thousands of years. In the first decades of the 20th century Costa Rican families settled the area in small numbers, many of the men working in the gold mines at Guacimal below, while others farmed the warmer valley of San Luis.

The modern community began in the early 1950s, when a group of Quakers from the United States, most of them from Fairhope, Alabama, left the country rather than be drafted before the Korean War. They chose these mountains for a cool climate suited to dairy farming and for Costa Rica's army-free constitution, and in 1951 built a meeting house that also served as a school and general store. They farmed a large tract of land and set part of it aside for conservation; that land became the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, founded in 1972. Improved roads in the 1960s let them send cheese and beef to the rest of the country, but overgrazing brought the dairy industry down in the 1970s, and many farmers turned to coffee.

Tourism changed everything. Fewer than a hundred visitors came in 1975; by the mid-1990s there were about 50,000, and an estimated 250,000 now arrive each year. In 2005 an armed robbery at the bank in Santa Elena ended in a hostage siege in which ten people died, an event that strained relations between Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans nationally. Long governed from distant Puntarenas, Monteverde pressed for self-government and became a canton of its own in 2022, electing its first municipal government in 2024.

Monteverde's identity rests on two things: its Quaker roots and its cloud forest. The meeting house built in 1951 grew into the Monteverde Friends School, which still teaches about 120 pupils bilingually, and the Quaker presence, along with several bilingual schools, means English is widely spoken alongside Spanish. A secular, bilingual Cloud Forest School, with local and international pupils, opened in 1991.

The forest has made the town a centre of science as well as tourism. Many foreign-born scientists live here, university field programmes and research groups work in the reserves and the San Luis valley. The reserve is famous among biologists for its orchids and for the golden toad, found only here and now extinct, which became a symbol of the worldwide decline of amphibians. In 2007 Costa Ricans voted Monteverde one of the Seven Wonders of the country.

Crafts are another local tradition: a women's art cooperative in the area sells wooden ware and other crafts. The pace of life is unhurried, conversation turns easily to birds and weather, and visitors are expected to respect the reserves' rules and the quiet of the forest.

The canton of Monteverde had an estimated population of about 5,400 in 2022 (4,155 at the 2011 census), spread across one district that takes in Santa Elena, Cerro Plano, Monte Verde, San Luis and several smaller settlements. Santa Elena is the head town, with the schools, banks, shops and most of the services, and much of the local economy has come to depend on tourism.

Agriculture, long the area's main income, still matters: dairy farms have long supplied the local dairy factory, and coffee growers in the area earned some of the highest prices in the world for their beans by the 1990s. Most jobs, though, are now in tourism — hotels, guiding, transport, canopy tours and restaurants — which has run here since the early 1990s.

Days begin early, with guided walks starting at dawn when the birds are most active, and evenings are quiet, with night walks the main entertainment. Roads have been partially paved in recent years, but the long climb from the highway still sets the rhythm of supplies and travel, and residents balance the income tourism brings with pressure on water, land and the forest.

Monteverde's own products come from its farms. The Quaker settlers came to make cheese, and Monteverde cheese has been sold across Costa Rica since the 1960s; local coffee, grown in the surrounding hills, is roasted and sold in the town, and small chocolate makers offer bean-to-bar tastings. Bakeries on Santa Elena's main street sell bread and pastries.

Everyday eating follows the Costa Rican pattern. Sodas, small family-run diners, serve gallo pinto, rice and black beans fried together, for breakfast, and the casado at lunch: rice, beans, salad, fried plantain and a piece of chicken, fish or beef. Batidos and frescos, fruit blended with milk or water, come with most meals, and the cool climate makes a cup of local coffee welcome at any hour.

Tourism has broadened the menu. Santa Elena's centre has Italian, Argentine, Japanese and international restaurants alongside the sodas, and lodges in Cerro Plano and Monteverde cook for guests who come back from evening walks. The women's cooperative serves home-style Costa Rican food as an alternative to the tourist fare.