For Donald, being a naturalist guide offered the perfect career to a student spending his university years dedicated alternatively to the study of biology and English. Today he’s been guiding for seven years, and came to Monteverde Lodge at the beginning of 2015. Given what our guests are saying about his knowledge and infectious enthusiasm when out walking the cloud forest, we're feeling pretty pleased to be able to offer Donald.
He doesn’t seem to find it surprising that he ended up guiding – as a kid he had a fascination with nature, and as he says of Monteverde; “the forest is all around you,” so growing up with it is inevitable. Donald is especially enamored of the many bird species that call the Cloud Forest home. Today, his favorite siting, like that of many of our guests, is the resplendent quetzal. Every year from December to June, Donald has the opportunity to show this remarkable bird off, as it moves up to the high altitudes of the cloud forest for the length of its mating season.
Today, he’s watching that love of nature develop in his young daughter. Donald says she’s showing a great ‘aficion’ for watching the birds that visit their family home just outside of the mountain town of Santa Elena. Along with his daughter, wife and a son, Donald’s other love is music. He plays the piano and the guitar as a long standing past time.
Donald believes that being a guide in Monteverde is a chance to not only help his guests spot rare birds and forest species, but also to impart a sense of how nature tourism, like that on which much of his home’s economy is founded, can benefit the community. He relishes the opportunity his work gives him to be a part of what he calls the “national project” of ecotourism.
