Welcome to Santa Elena – and the second part of our trip! While the arenal area is known for the volcano, activities, and rain forests, Santa Elena and its neighbor, Monteverde, are known for their cloud forests. This area is much higher elevation, so the climate and wildlife is quite different. After getting settled in we decided to start by spending some time exploring the town. We started off by visiting the butterfly gardens.
The gardens were quite impressive. There were a wide variety of butterflies, as well as fascinating caterpillars and flowers. I would definitely recommend it to anyone staying in town for a few days.
After about an hour we headed back to our room to freshen up for dinner. We decided to spend some time watching the sun set from our room, which had an incredible view of the western sky. We could see all the way to the pacific ocean from our room. This turned out to be a daily activity for us, and the sunset was consistently beautiful.
After our meal (it was great, as usual) we visited the frog pond. Its a small attraction right in town, so it seemed like an easy spot to visit that sounded interesting. Unfortunately our expectations were too high. It turned out to consist of a series of terrariums with different frog species. We did get a tour, but it was so rushed that it was practically a satire of itself. This one you could do without. At least we got to see a pretty cat?
Taken 2/16/23 to 2/17/23
