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Though it's less touristed than the Monteverde reserve, the RESERVA SANTA ELENA (daily 7am-4pm; US$7; www.monteverdeinfo.com/reserve.htm ), 6km northeast of the village of Santa Elena, offers just as illuminating an experience of the cloudforest. Higher than the Monteverde reserve - poised at an elevation of 1650m - its three-square-kilometre area consists of mainly primary cover. Trails are steeper and more challenging, and there's a slightly higher chance of seeing quetzals in season. Established in 1992, it strives to be self-funding, assisted by donations and revenue from entrance fees, and gives a percentage of its profits to local schools. For maintenance and building projects it depends greatly on volunteers, usually foreign students. Getting to the Santa Elena reserve from the village entails an arduous 5km walk over a boulder-strewn road, much of it uphill. Jeep-taxis (US$6) can be arranged by your hotel or can be picked up on Santa Elena's main street; the reserve can call a taxi to come and pick you up to take you back into town. More economically, a collective taxi (US$2) leaves for the reserve from in front of the Banco Nacional daily at 6.45am, 11am and 3pm, returning at 10.30am, noon and 3.30pm; make reservations a day in advance at the Info Center Camino Verde. There's a visitor centre at the entrance, with washrooms and an information booth where staff hand out maps of the twelve-kilometre network of trails. Highly recommended guided tours can be arranged for between one and four hours (about US$20, including entrance fee); the reserve also rents out boots (US$6.50) and issues a succinct six-page leaflet discussing rainforests, cloudforests, epiphytes, seed-dispersal patterns and some of the mammals you might see in the reserve. Guided nature walks (US$15) are offered at 7.30am and 11.30am daily; night tours (US$15, inclusive of entrance fee) leave at 7pm daily. A line of hummingbird feeders have been strung along the entrance path, where you can watch these tiny, many-coloured birds zooming in and out of nectar-dishes.
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