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Monteverde
Monteverde is the twelfth canton of the Puntarenas province of Costa Rica, located in the Cordillera de Tilarán (Tilarán range). Roughly a four-hour drive from the Central Valley, Monteverde is one of the country's major ecotourism destinations, with the Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde (Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve) being the largest, in addition to several other natural attractions which draw considerable numbers of tourists and naturalists, both from Costa Rica and abroad.
National Geographic has called the Monteverde Cloud Forest "the jewel in the crown of cloud forest reserves". Newsweek ranked Monteverde the world's No. 14 "place to remember before it disappears"; by popular vote in Costa Rica, Monteverde was deemed one of the seven natural wonders of the nation, along with Isla del Coco, Volcán Arenal, Cerro Chirripó, Río Celeste, Tortuguero, and Volcán Poás.
Santa Elena is the head town in the region, serving as the area's principal tourist and visitors' hub. Together with the nearby neighborhood of Cerro Plano, and the community of Monteverde proper, visitors have diverse options for accommodations, dining, guided tours, and more when visiting the area's numerous reserves and natural attractions.
Monteverde translates directly to "green mountain", in English, a tribute to the region's wealth of natural beauty. For comparison, the word's French equivalent would be vermont—or montanha verde in Portuguese. Officially, the name is Monte Verde — written with two words.
Monteverde rests at roughly at 1,400 m (4,600 ft) above sea level, located in a lush, misty and wet, yet breezy and cool, spot in the mountains. The region's mean annual temperature is 18 °C (64 °F) (Nadkarni 2000: 17). Annual precipitation averages around 3,000 mm (118 in), and ambient humidity oscillates between 74% and 97% (Nadkarni 2000: 34).
Various pre-Columbian artifacts testify to the existence of early populations of Clovis Native Americans, who once farmed in villages in the area and hunted the forests, ca. 3000 BC. From around 3300 BC to 2000 BC, nearby tribes of the Arenal area experienced a population decline, but re-established villages in the region between 2000 and 500 BC. Agriculture intensified in the centuries between 500 BC and 300 CE, with simple chiefdom societies replacing the formerly smaller, tribal settlements; some level of deforestation accompanied this rise in population, farming and horticulture. Early stone foundations dating to this period can also be found. Jade, and creating valuable objects with the stone, was a prized material and defining characteristic of these villages. From 300 to 800 CE, complex chiefdoms supplanted simpler chiefdoms as more intricate villages appeared; along with early modern examples of cemeteries, businesses and public squares, goldsmiths were seen as extremely valuable. intertribal trade and conflict. Around 1300, a general decline in population occurred, possibly due to the Arenal Volcano's increased activity.
After the Spanish made landfall in 1502, Costa Rica endured two generations of warfare. Total indigenous populations in what is now Costa Rica fell drastically, from an estimated 400,000 pre-European contact to 80,000 within less than 50 years of contact. Countless innocent people lost their lives for a multitude of reasons, from deplorable living conditions brought about by enslavement (and harsh forced labor and servitude) to outright sadistic punishments, and even murder, of anyone who challenged the conquistadores. Many thousands more quickly succumbed to the vast array of Old World pathogens and infectious diseases that their systems had no immunity against, including diseases such as measles, influenza, chickenpox, bubonic plague, typhus, scarlet fever, pneumonia, syphilis and malaria. However, in a somewhat cruel "twist of fate", unlike neighboring Nicaragua and Panama, Costa Rica did not yield considerable amounts of indigenous labor or mineral resources, and thus the region experienced colonization at a much slower rate than many other Spanish colonies.
During the first three decades of the 20th century, from roughly 1900–1930, Creole populations arrived in small numbers to the area that is now Monteverde; many men worked within the Guacimal gold mines; many more, still, with their wives and families, provided these miners and their greater communities with needed goods and services. Some families also settled in the lower, warmer valley of nearby San Luís.
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Monteverde
Monteverde is the twelfth canton of the Puntarenas province of Costa Rica, located in the Cordillera de Tilarán (Tilarán range). Roughly a four-hour drive from the Central Valley, Monteverde is one of the country's major ecotourism destinations, with the Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde (Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve) being the largest, in addition to several other natural attractions which draw considerable numbers of tourists and naturalists, both from Costa Rica and abroad.
National Geographic has called the Monteverde Cloud Forest "the jewel in the crown of cloud forest reserves". Newsweek ranked Monteverde the world's No. 14 "place to remember before it disappears"; by popular vote in Costa Rica, Monteverde was deemed one of the seven natural wonders of the nation, along with Isla del Coco, Volcán Arenal, Cerro Chirripó, Río Celeste, Tortuguero, and Volcán Poás.
Santa Elena is the head town in the region, serving as the area's principal tourist and visitors' hub. Together with the nearby neighborhood of Cerro Plano, and the community of Monteverde proper, visitors have diverse options for accommodations, dining, guided tours, and more when visiting the area's numerous reserves and natural attractions.
Monteverde translates directly to "green mountain", in English, a tribute to the region's wealth of natural beauty. For comparison, the word's French equivalent would be vermont—or montanha verde in Portuguese. Officially, the name is Monte Verde — written with two words.
Monteverde rests at roughly at 1,400 m (4,600 ft) above sea level, located in a lush, misty and wet, yet breezy and cool, spot in the mountains. The region's mean annual temperature is 18 °C (64 °F) (Nadkarni 2000: 17). Annual precipitation averages around 3,000 mm (118 in), and ambient humidity oscillates between 74% and 97% (Nadkarni 2000: 34).
Various pre-Columbian artifacts testify to the existence of early populations of Clovis Native Americans, who once farmed in villages in the area and hunted the forests, ca. 3000 BC. From around 3300 BC to 2000 BC, nearby tribes of the Arenal area experienced a population decline, but re-established villages in the region between 2000 and 500 BC. Agriculture intensified in the centuries between 500 BC and 300 CE, with simple chiefdom societies replacing the formerly smaller, tribal settlements; some level of deforestation accompanied this rise in population, farming and horticulture. Early stone foundations dating to this period can also be found. Jade, and creating valuable objects with the stone, was a prized material and defining characteristic of these villages. From 300 to 800 CE, complex chiefdoms supplanted simpler chiefdoms as more intricate villages appeared; along with early modern examples of cemeteries, businesses and public squares, goldsmiths were seen as extremely valuable. intertribal trade and conflict. Around 1300, a general decline in population occurred, possibly due to the Arenal Volcano's increased activity.
After the Spanish made landfall in 1502, Costa Rica endured two generations of warfare. Total indigenous populations in what is now Costa Rica fell drastically, from an estimated 400,000 pre-European contact to 80,000 within less than 50 years of contact. Countless innocent people lost their lives for a multitude of reasons, from deplorable living conditions brought about by enslavement (and harsh forced labor and servitude) to outright sadistic punishments, and even murder, of anyone who challenged the conquistadores. Many thousands more quickly succumbed to the vast array of Old World pathogens and infectious diseases that their systems had no immunity against, including diseases such as measles, influenza, chickenpox, bubonic plague, typhus, scarlet fever, pneumonia, syphilis and malaria. However, in a somewhat cruel "twist of fate", unlike neighboring Nicaragua and Panama, Costa Rica did not yield considerable amounts of indigenous labor or mineral resources, and thus the region experienced colonization at a much slower rate than many other Spanish colonies.
During the first three decades of the 20th century, from roughly 1900–1930, Creole populations arrived in small numbers to the area that is now Monteverde; many men worked within the Guacimal gold mines; many more, still, with their wives and families, provided these miners and their greater communities with needed goods and services. Some families also settled in the lower, warmer valley of nearby San Luís.