Broges of Costa Rica: Bosque de Paz

After our brief stop in Zarcero, we headed east into the mountains on a road that progressively got narrower the further we drove. Right after the road turned to gravel we arrived at Bosque de Paz Reserva Biologia Privada. This “Peace Forest” was tucked into the valley of a lush Rain/Cloud Forest. After being greeted by our hosts, we learned that we would be the only guests at this lovely retreat. (We tried to go the weekend before, but were told that the 12 rooms were full.) So, for the next 24 hours, we had this is a 3,000 acre piece of land to ourselves.

After checking into our spacious room, we spent an hour going through their Orchid Garden. Although this wasn’t really prime blooming time for the orchids, we managed to find quite a few and shot over 40 pictures. After lunch we ventured out to find their main waterfall. We hiked for 1 ½ hours before coming around a bend to a spectacular view of the top of the waterfall. We needed to hike down in the gorge to see the full view of the waterfall, which was probably about 150 feet high. We hiked the rest of the afternoon among the huge trees and babbling creeks.

On Sunday, it was raining. We tried to go for a birding hike but the weather just didn’t cooperate. We did see a hummingbird’s nest and the 2 babies inside of it. They were about the size of the tip of your baby finger. We hiked more trails in the rain and left late morning. We decided to take a different road home. Wow! Sorry, we have no pictures. But it was probably the scariest road we’ve ever been on. We creeped straight up a huge hill to the top of a ridge and then drove along a cut in the face. It was completely covered in fog and at many times only wide enough for only one car with a steep drop off the side – often with missing pavement along a landslide. We felt like at any minute the road would just end.