“Fishing for spiders...”

Technically tarantulas aren’t spiders. They have hairy bodies, lack lower mandibles and don’t produce silk or make webs. None of that is any comfort to Denielle. The other night we arrived in Santa Elena, just below the cloud forest and wasted no time signing up for a night walk through the forest to see some animals. We spotted our third species of toucan, the emerald toucan. Apparently toucans are nasty birds as they eat not just fruit as Toucan Sam would have you believe, but dine upon small birds and eggs, including those of other toucans. Soon thereafter our guide fetched a small stick and fished out a orange knee tarantula as big as my hand, and I have big hands. Denielle was not a fan, but I was very impressed and would remember the fishing technique for later.

Other animals on the night tour included two possum species, crickets, katydids that looked like rotting leaves, stick bugs, a rain frog, an emerald side striped viper, and sloths. Lots of people come to the rain forest hoping to see sloths, but most fail as they are very difficult to see. Staying in the high canopy most of the time would make it difficult enough, but sloths also sleep for up to 17 hours a day, and are active mainly in the night. We were fortunate enough to see three sloths. One was a mother with baby clinging to its belly, and the third was an aggressive male. While the group of night tourists stood and watched the sloths slothing about, the sloths began to fight.

Now, a sloth fight may sound like something fairly comedic in slow motion like “IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII’mmmmmmmmmmmmm gooooooooooooooooooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg toooooooooooooooooooooo gggggggggggggeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttttttttttttttttttttt yyoooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!”, but this was very exciting. These sloths moved faster than I could have imagined, and it looked like the male was trying to get at the baby. The mother quickly climbed down a vine while swiping back at the male above. We lost contact as they all descended below towards the ground. This was the first time our guide had ever seen anything like that in over 11 years of leading tours, so we felt very fortunate.

The next day we awoke early and drove up towards the Santa Elena reserve. The road was something else, as not only was it rough, but constant rain and mist left the steep hills very slick. Having successfully navigated to the reserve, I had my own reserves as to whether the car would make it back out. The nice thing about Santa Elena, is that it is much less busy than Monteverde, seeing only 20,000 visitors per year compared to the 200,000 that Monteverde receives. We were only one of three cars in the parking lot, which left us unperturbed along our hike through the forest. While the wildlife was scarce, we were able to see many unique millipedes and beetles, and I was able to successfully fish out my own orange knee tarantula much to Denielle’s delight. This was a very creepy experience to have a tarantula the size of your hand chase a stick out of a hole that you are holding and standing very close to, all while trying not to move so as not to scare it away. I was able to get a couple of pictures while holding my fishing stick and Denielle breathed a sigh of relief once we moved on. A plethora of hummingbirds awaited our exit from the park at the many bird feeders, and we watched 5 different species battle for position.

That afternoon we then went to the ranarium, or froggery as I like to call it, and took a tour of all the different terrariums of frog species found in Costa Rica. I was hoping for an open exhibit like that which we visited in Fortuna, but these were all closed terrariums. Most of the frogs were sleeping while we were there, but our tickets allowed us to return in the evening when the frogs would be more active. We returned at night with cameras and headlamps in hand, and took many pictures of the bizarre and wonderful frogs. The most amazing were the glass frogs that have transparent skin so that you can see all of their internal organs and veins. As well, the ever incredible red eyed tree frogs were there in droves. Today we are relaxing and taking a free hike up the hill towards Monteverde to where the television towers are then it’s off to get the oil changed and back to the sun and surf. It will be a nice change getting out of the 18 degrees and rain and back to the 35 degrees and sun.

Tyler.