Travel: Panama & Costa Rica Day 10: Monteverde Night Tour

We took a night tour* in Monteverde with the hopes of seeing some nocturnal inhabitants of the cloud forest. We opted for a private tour, so our group of 5 was assigned to a single tour guide. I believe the limit on group size with this refuge is 8 people.

Going in I'd expected for tour groups to be quiet and guides to use red lights which are less disruptive to wildlife, particularly mammals, than other colors of light. When we arrived I was then disappointed by the number of simultaneous tours and all of the tour guides using LED flash lights. It was both loud and bright, so its no surprise that we didn't actually see any nocturnal mammals on the tour. Even without the bright lights and loud tour groups, we would have been very lucky to spot any of the nocturnal wildcat species of Costa Rica but it was clear to me from the start that we'd have no chance at all.

Given that the crowding and lighting was less than ideal, our tour guide did a good job of finding creatures and setting up his scope with a spotlight (🤦) shining on the animals so that we could see. We were constantly amongst other tour groups, so even though we had our own guide the trails were sometimes crowded.

All of my photos are from my Pixel 6* because it is better at nighttime photography than I am with my Canon EOS R7* I didn't want to bring a monopod or tripod on this tour, and I don't have lenses that I felt confident could get high quality nighttime photos. Additionally, most of these photos were taken with my phone through our tour guide's scope.

We also saw a Tarantula Hawk Wasp. Our tour guide asked us to turn off our lights because they apparently have an excruciating bite. They are a bit terrifying, not because of the painful bite, but because they paralyze a tarantula to lay an egg on it and as the larva grows it consumes the tarantula while keeping it alive. More nightmare fuel in this longer profile.