Up Close and Personal with a Tarantula: A Night Hike in Costa Rica
Hiking through the rainforest at night in a rainstorm? Are we crazy? Not at all. We had good flashlights and a naturalist/guide, and it was magnificent.
We’re in Santa Elena/Montverde, Costa Rica, and there are several “night walk” tours available. We asked Cristina, the all-knowing, ultrafriendly concierge at our hotel (Claro de la Luna), which was the best, and she told us it depended on what we wanted: popular or quiet. We chose quiet, and we were the only customers walking with Greyving (our guide) through the former Finca San Francisco de Assisi (Saint Francis of Assisi Farm). Arriving just before dark, we were awestruck by the majesty of the tall trees shrouded in mist, the sounds of the many species of insects, the thickness of the understory.
Dozens of mammal, snake, and bird species live in this reclaimed forest, now conservation land: sloths, agoutis, quetzals, porcupines, and monkeys, to name a few. But Greyving warned us that we weren’t likely to see many animals in the rain, and in fact we saw nothing with four legs. But we saw plenty of insects and spiders, including walking sicks, moths, crickets, grasshoppers—and two tarantulas. He was able to coax one of them—an orange-kneed tarantula about six inches in diameter, which he said was a very common type—out of its hole, and it came within a foot of us. I grabbed for my camera but she skittered off. The other one was busy eating, and couldn’t be prodded out of its tree trunk no matter what. But it’s quite something to peer into a hollow log and see these deep eyes staring at you from a twisted collection of black hairy legs.
This was a female, he said. Females live about ten years and spend their whole lives inside one place, in this case a hollow log. Males spend their days walking around the forest, and as a result—being a tasty snack for many of the four-legged creatures here, and also at risk of being killed and eaten by the female following impregnation—live only a couple of months.
We passed an enormous strangler fig that he estimated at 200 years old. And, he says, in the nearby parks there are some specimens five times as large and four times as old.
In all, it was a fascinating hour and a half.
Boy does this post bring back memories! I worked in Monteverde for three months as a young woman right before I got married – first in a hotel owned by some relatives and then at Stella’s Bakery (before she expanded.) What a magical experience! I’ll never forget seeing a toucan in flight for the first time – such an impossible-looking creature! And that incredible flash of vivid blue when a Morpho butterfly suddenly appears out of nowhere, like a floating sapphire saucer. And just the incredible diversity and layers upon layers of LIFE!!!
How wonderful that you have the chance to visit this amazing place – and share your experiences with the rest of us!
Anne, that sounds like it was a really magical time. Monteverde was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. Costa Rica is an absolute paradise for birds ad butterflies–we saw several of the Morphos. No toucans for us in Monteverde, but we did see one up close that wandered into our restaurant in Tortuguero. The staff caught it in a napkin and brought me over to see it before releasing it.
Boy does this post bring back memories! I worked in Monteverde for three months as a young woman right before I got married – first in a hotel owned by some relatives and then at Stella’s Bakery (before she expanded.) What a magical experience! I’ll never forget seeing a toucan in flight for the first time – such an impossible-looking creature! And that incredible flash of vivid blue when a Morpho butterfly suddenly appears out of nowhere, like a floating sapphire saucer. And just the incredible diversity and layers upon layers of LIFE!!!
How wonderful that you have the chance to visit this amazing place – and share your experiences with the rest of us!
Anne, that sounds like it was a really magical time. Monteverde was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. Costa Rica is an absolute paradise for birds ad butterflies–we saw several of the Morphos. No toucans for us in Monteverde, but we did see one up close that wandered into our restaurant in Tortuguero. The staff caught it in a napkin and brought me over to see it before releasing it.
Boy does this post bring back memories! I worked in Monteverde for three months as a young woman right before I got married – first in a hotel owned by some relatives and then at Stella’s Bakery (before she expanded.) What a magical experience! I’ll never forget seeing a toucan in flight for the first time – such an impossible-looking creature! And that incredible flash of vivid blue when a Morpho butterfly suddenly appears out of nowhere, like a floating sapphire saucer. And just the incredible diversity and layers upon layers of LIFE!!!
How wonderful that you have the chance to visit this amazing place – and share your experiences with the rest of us!
Anne, that sounds like it was a really magical time. Monteverde was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. Costa Rica is an absolute paradise for birds ad butterflies–we saw several of the Morphos. No toucans for us in Monteverde, but we did see one up close that wandered into our restaurant in Tortuguero. The staff caught it in a napkin and brought me over to see it before releasing it.
Boy does this post bring back memories! I worked in Monteverde for three months as a young woman right before I got married – first in a hotel owned by some relatives and then at Stella’s Bakery (before she expanded.) What a magical experience! I’ll never forget seeing a toucan in flight for the first time – such an impossible-looking creature! And that incredible flash of vivid blue when a Morpho butterfly suddenly appears out of nowhere, like a floating sapphire saucer. And just the incredible diversity and layers upon layers of LIFE!!!
How wonderful that you have the chance to visit this amazing place – and share your experiences with the rest of us!
Anne, that sounds like it was a really magical time. Monteverde was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. Costa Rica is an absolute paradise for birds ad butterflies–we saw several of the Morphos. No toucans for us in Monteverde, but we did see one up close that wandered into our restaurant in Tortuguero. The staff caught it in a napkin and brought me over to see it before releasing it.