A night walk to remember

by Carola Berens (Germany)

I didn't expect to find Costa Rica

“But where are the sloths?! Is that a sloth?” I could hear desperation in the woman's voice. She was shielding her eyes from the Costa Rican sun and scanning the tree tops. We were on a guided cloud forest tour and hadn't seen much wildlife. “No, that's a dead leaf” our guide Bernado patiently explained to her for the fifth time. “If you want to see more interesting animals, you need to come here at night.” I shuddered. Traipsing through the jungle in the middle of the night, surrounded by all sorts of creepy crawlies, was not my idea of fun. But the idea of seeing more animals… I booked the next available tour as soon as I got back to the hotel. A taxi picked me up after dark and drove me over to Ecogarden Arenal. “¡Hola, amiga!” A young man came out of entrance. “Me llamo José, I will be your guide tonight”. He handed me a flashlight. “So, good news,” he said, “you get a very special VIP tour - you are the only one who signed up!” This never happens to me! “Here, look at this.” He shone his own light at a grey bundle in a palm tree, not three meters from the edge of the terrace. It was a sloth! I stood there admiring the sloth plucking a leaf in slow-motion while José got ready for us to leave. We headed out into the park. It was way past sunset but it wasn't that dark. A full moon illuminated the scenery around us. We continued slowly into the forest, keeping the flashlights trained on the big leaves and the ground, in search of insects, frogs and lizards. We spotted a stick insect, a wolf spider chewing on a wasp, some bright neon green spider that was hiding in its cocoon when we got too close, and many, many frogs. José loves frogs! Every time we spotted a frog he would get really excited and said: “Give me your phone, give me your phone!” Then he would take ten pictures of the frog before I got to see it. “I love my job!” He would exclaim and snap another photo. As we continued on, José asked me to hang back a bit. He carefully rifled through the foliage on the ground and after a minute or so came back to me holding a leaf. On it the tiniest frog that I had ever seen, and, as it turns out, the most poisonous one! “This is a poison dart frog. It is so poisonous, it can kill a thousand men!” The tiny red amphibian just sat there and looked at us. José carefully stuck the frog's leaf in a nearby Bromelia. We hadn't walked very far when José suddenly stopped again. “Don't move” he said quietly and carefully inched forward, looking over the side of the path. Not two meters away lay a fer-de-lance, also called Bothrops asper - a very venomous type of viper. “How big do you think it is?” I whispered. I was amazed that it was just lying there. I had thought snakes moved away when they felt the vibration of foot steps through the ground, but this one was just curled up right in front of us. “At least one and a half meters” he whispered back. “Be careful and don't get too close.” We just stood there for a while and marveled at the snake that was patiently waiting for unsuspecting rodents to pass by. Eventually we carried on towards a pond, passing busy leaf cutter ants. As we reached the water, José pointed at the dark basin. “There is one more frog that I want you to see” José said. He made croaking noises and looked under all the big plants. “Aha!” he exclaimed and held his hand out for my phone. On a wide leaf there it sits, Costa Rica's treasure: the red-eyed tree frog. “This calls for Empanadas!” We returned to the house, where José’s wife was serving freshly made black bean empanadas with green salsa. They were piping hot and delicious and the perfect finish for a night walk of endless discoveries.