IMAGES: GETTY
COSTA RICA
ortiga leaves for muscle aches. For centuries, they’ve lived close to nature in this forest, taking only what they need. We think about that a lot.”
Birds of a feather It is a good thing I don’t know the name of the darkening mountain pass I am currently driving through and on which thick fog is descending. Had I been paying closer attention to the map, I might have seen the words ‘Cerro de la Muerte’ (‘Hill of Death’) written across a zigzag of hairpin bends. But for now, I’m simply navigating the playful twists of the Pan-American Highway — with ears popping, now more than 3,500m above sea level — peering at passing road signs to find the turn off to a hard-to-reach but high-reward destination: the bird-watching haven of San Gerardo de Dota. The half-day journey has gifted me an
understanding of the sheer variety of terrain across Costa Rica. I’d picked up my hire car in the city of Siquirres, where the rapids released us elated paddlers back into civilisation. And while the Pacuare barrelled onwards towards the Caribbean coast, I’d turned inland, driving with the windows down through the farmlands and puffing volcanoes of the Central Valley, up and up, to the crisp highlands of southern Costa Rica. When I finally do reach the cosy Trogón Lodge, nestled in a dramatic mountain fold on the edge of Los Quetzales National Park, the night is very dark, cold and clear — the Milky Way smeared across a sparkling tapestry of stars. It’s this stark, almost-Alpine beauty that draws committed travellers to this pocket
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of the country — that and its thriving population of one particular bird species. Resplendent quetzals are near-endangered and have a mythical beauty; many MesoAmerican civilisations considered them sacred. The Maya and Aztecs plucked their 3ft tail feathers to decorate royal headdresses. At dawn, I join a group of fellow pilgrims — all sensibly wrapped up in puffer jackets of varying colours, all clasping telephoto lenses — outside the hotel with manager and experienced birder Greivin Gónzález. “Every time I see one, it’s like my first time,” he says, leading us through the town to an orchard of wild avocado trees the birds sometimes visit for early-morning grazing. Greivin is well practised in building
anticipation. During the sighting-free hours that follow, he fills the cold morning air with facts, speaking in a low, gentle voice so as not to scare away a prospectively peckish quetzal. I learn the brightly hued males grow their long plumes ahead of mating season between February and May, while the females are more modest in appearance. And although sightings in other Central American nations are rare due to habitat degradation, in Costa Rica, where 28% of the land is protected, and where the locals around San Gerardo de Dota carefully cultivate food sources, the population is growing. “Can you hear that? Here comes a female!”
Greivin announces suddenly. A rotund bird swoops onto a shady branch and sits, twitching her head, in a perfect tableau framed by hanging lichen and sprouting bromeliads. She’s magnificent: a deep turquoise rippling across her wings and neck and cherry-red on her chest, with black-and-white scallop
From top: hills and forest surrounding the Los Quetzales National Park; a resplendent quetzal male — quetzals are the national bird of Costa Rica
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