Night Outings in Santa Elena

     Unfortunately the Internet in Santa Elena, and later in La Fortuna, was very spotty since I last posted....so, now I am posting several at a time about my last week's travels.

NIGHT HIKE:
     Kristen and I decided to go on a guided night hike to see some of the nocturnal friends of the jungle.  We met up with our guide and about 10 other people and headed to a privately owned tract of land.  All of the tour guides carried walkie-talkies so that they could report animal sightings to the other tour guides.  It was raining when we started out but luckily it never rained very hard during our hike.

a bunch of tourists walking in the dark hoping animals would just fall into our laps.

       During our hike, our guide found several animals.....we first encountered a viper in a banana tree....very scary how camouflaged he was....He wasn't happy about being found either.

Can you find the head?  Heck, can you even find the snake?

    We also got to see a very cute little yellow/orange frog and an orange-knee tarantula.

I always thought the frogs would be bigger....but no, most of the cool ones are little

We saw a Mexican hairy dwarf porcupine....unfortunately my picture didn't come out clearly.  We also saw an owl swoop to the ground and carry off his dinner.

     We saw a Blue-crowned Motmot.....a beautiful bird.  He was a little perturbed at being woken up but he was a good sport about it.....he let me get a good shot of him anyway.

Put that light out!

      The highlight of the night was a two-toed sloth!!!!!!  Very hard to see up in the trees.  She also had a baby with her but it only stuck its head out for a moment.  Did you know that a sloth has to come down to the ground to poop (once a week) but it won't come down if it drops its baby?  That doesn't seem right.
  You have to use your imagination a little with the pics.....she was very hard to see and focus on.

Sloth!!!!!!!

You can clearly see the eye.

   We also got to see an armadillo....I wasn't as excited about that one.  Everybody else was though.  Guess they need to come to Texas.

RANARIA:

   The next night, Kristen and I visited the Frog Pond in Santa Elena where they had many different species of amphibians and reptiles of Costa Rica.  They were in tanks but it was a very nice setup they had there.  We had a guide show us around the dark "zoo" with flashlights being our only lights....Let me tell you how hard it is to take pictures of frogs using a flashlight as the light source!  

Glass frog.....How cool!  You can see his guts!

These little guys are called "green jeans frogs"

Huesos verde......Green bones frog.....weird huh?

This is the red-eyed tree frog....the symbolic frog of Costa Rica...even though he is found through Central and South America.

This was a cute little guy (Smilisca phaeota) who sat very nicely for the camera....even though there was a flashlight shining in his eyes.

Large Tree frog

A big guy found on the ground in the forest

They also had some Becquers (boa constrictors) but, since I have already gotten a great shot of a very full Becquer....I didn't think I needed another one.  They had many other cool frog and toad species but many of these little guys refused to sit still for their photo op.  Can you blame them?

      All in all, the night hike and the Ranaria were very interesting and educational.  Our guides for both were great......although I did make our guide at the frog pond very nervous once he learned I was a Biology teacher.  I told him to relax.