Night Walk in Costa Rica

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A night walk in Costa Rica is a highlight of a trip to the rain forest. While spotting a sloth sleeping in a tree during the day is cool, seeing a sloth slowing gliding through the branches is a mesmerizing site—the sloth appears as a prehistoric creature; its furry body maintains a steady pace as it floats from branch to branch. Unlike trying to spot a sloth camouflaged among tree branches during the day, even an inexperienced eye can easily spot and follow a sloth on its nocturnal journey with only a minimum of guidance. In addition, differentiating the limbs from the body can be a difficult task for an amateur looking at a sleeping sloth, however, a sloth at night time becomes a recognizable form—furry backside and four limbs all distinguishable from one another.

Other nightlife to find includes sleeping animals like porcupines and birds. We spotted a porcupine resting in a hollow tree, somehow balancing on a rather precarious ledge. Equally intriguing was seeing three wood thrushes asleep, huddled against one another on a branch for the night and a chachalaca just settling down for the night. Fireflies sparkled by the hundreds in the woods, leaf cutter ants were staying busy after dark maintaining their constant stream of leaf cutting and carrying, raccoon eyes glowed in the flashlight beam as they paused in their trek along the forest floor—we actually saw much more animal movement during the night than during the day.

And no night walk is complete without the guide tempting a tarantula to come out of its home—large, furry, orange-banded legs crept out tantalized by the possibility of food creeping by. I was only a bit dismayed that the tarantula was being tempted from its home in the very same tree into which we had earlier ventured to peer up at the porcupine—sometimes its better not to know what lurks nearby in the jungle.