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In early March, the sunset lookouts in Monteverde, Costa Rica, were packed with tourists. This community of roughly 6,000 residents is an ecotourism hot spot, and by most accounts, 2020 was set to be a banner year.
Now police tape wraps the newly installed wooden benches, and every attraction, including the famed Cloud Forest Biological Preserve, is shuttered. Restaurants are folding and accommodations, from backpacker hostels to homestays and Airbnbs, are empty. A silence has descended, cut only by birdsong. It’s both tranquil and ominous the sound of indefinite absence.
Santa Elena, the village serving the area around Monteverde, normally hums with visitors hopping from backpacker hostels to restaurants and attractions, such as the Serpentario snake zoo (right). Now the streets are empty.Photograph by Mauricio Valverde Arce ....

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