Monteverde: Night Walk

So as not to let any time go to waste, we signed up for a night walk on our first night in Monteverde/Santa Elena. Night walks are guided wildlife tours through the jungle that happen – as you may have guessed – after dark. The shuttle picked us up from our hotel and dropped us off at an office on the edge of the forest right after sunset. We paid and then waited around with a group of about a dozen other tourists to start. The guide gave us the spiel (don’t wander off, no flash photos, blah blah blah…). Then he handed us each a flash light and we set off.

This was, I should say, not in one of the nature preserves or anything. I’m pretty sure some company bought a piece of undeveloped land a little outside town, made a few paths, hired some guides, and started making money.

The wildlife density was quite high. The highlights reel included: toucans, frogs, onlingos (small lemur – like relative of the raccoon), a tarantula, a tree viper, and a sloth. The photo opps were, well not great. Our guide stressed making sure everyone got a look before we busted out the cameras. Good advice, since night time photos rarely come out that well. Here’s one of Elani’s better ones of a toucan:

Though seeing all these animals was great, the encounters felt a bit – well – scripted. The guides seemed to know where everything was almost a little too well. At one point, he hopped off the path, grabbed a specific leaf next to a stream and turned it over to reveal a tree frog. He had some good facts about that species of frog – including that it’s endemic to Costa Rica. Not that I’m complaining, it was a cool frog, and I enjoyed seeing it, not to mention it is easily the best picture of the night (in part because the guide took my phone and he was a master of cell phone photography):

As another example, we saw one of the real crowd pleasers – a young two-toed sloth – as the last sighting on the way out. It seemed like a bit too good of timing to be purely coincidence. I’m not sure how they did it, though all the guides (there were several groups) had radios and were talking, and I’m sure some of the animals have their favorite spots that the guides all know about. It did detract a bit from that marvelous feeling of running across an animal by chance in the wild. Despite that, it was still a great way to see some animals in the wild and at night when some were more active. All in all, a great way to spend our first night in the cloud forest.