The Communities
In recent years SANTA ELENA has benefited - economically, anyway - from the influx of visitors to both the Monteverde reserve and, increasingly, to the Santa Elena reserve, 5km northeast. The Info Center Camino Verde in the centre of the village (tel 645-5916, fax 645-6305) sells tickets to the Santa Elena reserve, the Sky Walk, Sky Trek, and the Monteverde Canopy Tour; they can also arrange guided tours to the Monteverde reserve and guides for the Sky Walk. Friendly and efficient Desafio Tours next door offer a similar range of services, plus Internet access (US$5/hr); they can also hook you up with whitewater rafting in the Fortuna area and run a speedy and enjoyable transfer from Monteverde to Fortuna and vice versa using horses, boat-taxi, and Jeep-taxi, which gets you to Fortuna in around 4-5 hours and costs about US$25. For a one-page handout with a map of the area and a helpful rundown of bus times and other transport details, head to the Pension Santa Elena , 50m south of the Banco Nacional. Gringos hang out at Chunches (Mon-Sat 8am-6pm; tel 645-5147), opposite the Pension Santa Elena , which has a laundry, cafe serving espresso, US newspapers, and a useful noticeboard with details of tours, rooms and just about everything else. Its secondhand bookstore is especially good. Though it's better by far to bring plenty of colones, the Banco Nacional (Mon-Fri 8am-3pm) can change travellers' cheques , a service also offered to guests by many of the upscale Monteverde hotels. MONTEVERDE proper is a seemingly timeless place, where milk cans are left out at the end of small dairy-farm driveways to be collected, modest houses sit perched above splendid forested views, and farmers trudge along the muddy roads in sturdy rubber boots. The focal points of the community are the Lecheria (cheese factory), the Friends Meeting House and school, and the cluster of services around CASEM , the women's arts and crafts collective.
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