Monteverde Cloud Forest Guided Tour

We booked two tours with Dennis before we got to Monteverde based off the reviews here - a day tour and a night tour. Both were awesome, and honestly Dennis was one of the best parts. His enthusiasm for the wildlife and plants was infectious and we all had a great time, despite the rain and chilly weather. He's also a professional photographer, so we came away with amazing photos to remember the experiences. We learned a lot and saw a lot more than we would have otherwise.

We were in Costa Rica for our honeymoon and stopped by Monteverde for a couple days. We had seen wonderful reviews of Dennis so decided to meet with him for a tour. Wow, what a great guy. We had no idea until later in the tour, but Dennis's second child was born 3 days before our tour, and he still showed up (even though it was just us two!) and gave it so much energy - we felt bad, but he was happy to have the business during tourist low season. His English was excellent and he was super knowledgable about the entire Costa Rican country. He keeps his tours small so they can be more intimate. His passions are birds and snakes so he spoke about them a lot, but knew a ton about plants and fungi as well. Unfortunately we didn't see too many animals during our day tour (mostly a pit viper), but have heard that the forest is more active at night. He was pretty honest with us about our best chances of seeing various animals so he actually referred us to a friend, Gustavo with Great Wings Tours in La Fortuna/Arenal area, for a night tour when we would be there later in the week. I really appreciated him for that because we saw a lot of frogs and snakes. The two men are very similar - ethical, love what they do, and enthusiastic - so it makes sense they would be friends!

Our tour with Dennis was a wonderful experience. He had so much knowledge to share about all kinds of life in the cloud forest: the world’s smallest orchid flower, a zombie wasp taken over by cordyceps, leaves used for medicine by humans and primates, and so much more! He also helped us to take some great photos and we saw howler monkeys, peccaries, and a hummingbird nest (those I didn’t photograph) but even if we hadn’t seen any animals I would have enjoyed this tour. He was extremely engaging, shared tips for wildlife photography, and I would recommend him to everyone. He encouraged us to start our tour earlier in the day to avoid the rain, and I am so glad we did because the activity of wildlife was better in the morning as well (we came during rainy season in the first week of September).