Day 6
Oct 29. 2014
Outline:
- Orientation at Escuela Creativa with Willow Zuchowski
- Interview with some hotel owners
- Handing our surveys and meeting business owners
I met up Willow again, this time at Escuela Creativa and she oriented me with the gardens ProNativas have implemented there. Each garden had a theme, which generally attracted different wildlife: a bat garden, a hummingbird garden, a frugivorous (i.e. fruit-eating) bird garden, a mixed wildlife garden, a restoration garden, a memorial garden, an International Peace garden and more. Escuela Creativa’s campus is huge and also next to a forest with beautiful trails (I know; I’ve taken it). Willow and I couldn’t help but agree that it’s so easy taking the natural surroundings here for granted as it is indeed so readily accessible (though the students here are busy, going to school as early as 7 and coming home as late as 5!)
Below are pictures of Escuela Creativa:









































































































Pictures of hotel:








Pictures of Casa de Arte:































A hotel owner’s thoughts on tourism in the Santa Elena area:
- Only 1-2 tourists for a natural history walk
- Half dry and rainforest on west side versus rainforest on east side
- Coffee tour very popular here. most associated with Costa Rica
- Don’t realize about biodiversity here until they come but too late because travel agency already booked them for only a day
- Selvatura is the Disney world +> to get everything done in a day; but quality is not great => better butterfly garden in Cerro Plano and better hummingbird garden at Monteverde Cloud Reserve for much cheaper
- People don’t want guides when they hike
- Zip Line is more popular to do here
- No history of Monteverde Tour; only in a book
- There’s nothing to do in Santa Elena but pass by
- No parks, no ecotours in Santa Elena
- Have to go far out to do something naturey
What’s Next:
- Observation and data collection at Bajo del Tigre
- Search for more site plans and documents from the Monteverde Institute
- Interview with Felipe Negrini; i.e. the famous landscape designer of Monteverde
- Review new documents from the Monteverde Institute