Puntarenas

High on the continental divide, where the trade winds push moisture up from the Caribbean side and it condenses as it crosses, sits a band of cloud forest that is one of Costa Rica's defining landscapes: trees so loaded with moss, bromeliads and orchids that the branches are gardens, a constant drifting mist, and a cool, wet, wind-blown climate that surprises everyone who packed for the tropics. The wildlife here is not the easy-viewing kind — the forest is dense and vertical and much of what lives in it is small or high up — but it holds one of the world's most sought-after birds in the resplendent quetzal, along with bellbirds, hummingbirds in quantity at the feeders, and a famously rich amphibian and insect life. This is also where the canopy zipline was invented as a research tool before it became a global tourist activity, and where suspended walkways let you stand at the level where most of the forest actually lives. The settlement above the reserves was founded in the mid-twentieth century by a small group of North American Quaker dairy farmers, and the community's dairy and its conservation ethic both date from then. Access is deliberately unimproved: the roads in are rough and always have been, which is a local choice rather than neglect. The transport guide covers the boat-and-minibus crossing that connects this forest to the volcano country to the north, which is more comfortable and far more interesting than driving around.