A Rainforest Night Tour

Quick update before the night tour adventure.  I am flying back to the states today.  I realize that I'm behind on my blogging and have 2 more adventures to share with you and.....that I'm behind on my green challenges.  Once I get back to a normal schedule I will be better about being on track!

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While in Monteverde, after our adventure of flying through the skies Max, a classmate of our decided that we should go on a night tour, to see as many nocturnal animals as we could!  I was a little nervous, seeing as I'm not really an insect loving person and....when you see a cockroach this big sitting in the office of the night tour place it doesn't make one feel any more secure.

I wanted to see some cool bugs, but....this may be a little bit too large for my liking!

Armed with a flashlight and we were off!  The rainforest comes alive at night.  There are tons of insects that wake up at night, singing their little songs.  Dancing lights of insects similar to fireflies fill the sky early in the evening.  Moths are occasionally attracted to our flashlights and well it is sort of nerve racking to be surrounded by darkness and completely new sounds.   I'm not going to lie it was a scary fun feeling to be in the rainforest at night.

Below is a brief video of the sounds at night.  It doesn't do the rainforest justice, but gives you an idea.

  

In terms of seeing mammals we lucked out.  At dusk we saw a Coati (relative of the raccoon), squirrel and an agouti (very similar to a large brown rat).  Later while flashing our lights around we happened upon 3 raccoons, and a porcupine.

The insects we saw were pretty cool.

We saw some spiders that were a little to large for my liking.

There were some that disguised themselves as leaves.  It's crazy, because you can even see the veins of the leaf on this guys back.

We saw a lizard or two.  Can you see him sleeping on the leaf back there?

The stick bug was Sief's favorite.

The highlight of the evening was the search for a tarantula.  During our day walk we happened upon many holes that could be housing tarantulas.  Max was very excited to see a trantula.  Sief who is not a fan of spiders was ok with not seeing a taruntula.  Everytime our guide said "I found something" or got a call from his buddy over their walkie-talkies - I was nervous/excited/scared that it might actually be a tarantula. 
Finally the moment arrived.  Our guide told us to stop in our tracks.  He said walk over on this side of the path point your flashlights away from this bank (where tarantula holes often are) and to walk as slowly and quietly as possible.  Ok....so we did.  I was waiting for us to turn around and have a giant tarantula sitting on the trail.

That's not exactly what happened.  We turned around and there was a hole.  He let each of us bend down to peak our heads in and catcha glimpse of the giant spider.

Now the fun begins.  We all stand still and our guide informs us that he is going to try and coax the tarantula out of it's hole, by scratching the ground with a stick.  This is to mimic a bug or something the spider might eat.  Tarantula's are not deadly to humans, but they do carry a very nasty bite that HURTS!

Below is the video of the tarantula being coaxed out.

Ok gotta run, time to catch my flight!