Wildlife spotting and a night tour.

It’s our last day in Monteverde and this means our Costa Rican adventure is coming to a close. We fly to Canada in 3 days and we cannot wait. Costa Rica has been an experience. We have travelled Coast to Coast, experienced a variety of incredible native wildlife, explored various National parks, punched a raccoon in the face (accidently), travelled on more public busses than I care to share, met some awesome couples to share our journey with and cooked the entire way keeping budget friendly. It’s been a wild ride.

Today was really a day of not doing a whole heap. We got up this morning and were treated to chocolate chip pancakes and fruit – my abso fav breaky here and from there we worked, packed, tidied up and then wanted to get one last dose of wildlife in before heading back to San Jose tomorrow.
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We have read about the frog parks in Monteverde and to be honest the reviews are a maxed bag ranging from it was ‘the best experience of my life’ to ‘I’d rather die than go there again’… we were torn as we do like reading reviews before we go anywhere. However, I wanted to see the frogs so we opted for the ‘Selvatura Reptile & Amphibian Exhibition’ as this one looked slightly newer and a bit more professional as after asking, the creatures are cared for and monitored by the permanent onsite biologist.

It costs $16USD pp to get in which is pricey, but I was still keen and after cooking for 3 weeks straight to save money, we deserve to see the frogs! A bit about the park – it includes frogs, lizards, geckos, snakes and many other kinds of reptiles and amphibians from more than 30 different species found throughout Costa Rica and is the only Herpetarium…(I had no idea what it meant but later found out it’s and exhibition of both reptiles and amphibians together) in the area.
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It’s small, hot, humid BUT enjoyable. It doesn’t take long at all and you can use the same day ticket in the evening to visit after dark when most of the wildlife appears as they are all nocturnal. I managed to snap some epic shots of the poison arrow frogs, snakes, lizards but during the day no luck on the red eyed tree frog, which means we had to return in the evening! 

The night tour was epic! We saw a lot and the vipers especially were really active...AND...I got to see my tree frog! However, it’s not for everyone, I know this, but for us on a windy rainy day in the forest it was a great way to pass some time and learn some new and interesting facts about the native wildlife here. As we are heading back to San Jose tomorrow for 3 nights, I will be taking a break from the blog until Canada and until I have something semi-interesting to wrote about, so for now enjoy the wildlife spam below and chat soon!