Kinkajou Night Walk — Attraction in Monteverde

Do not waste your money doing this night walk. Let me start by saying that although this was the only night walk we did in monteverde, we did do other night walks in Costa Rica during our stay and this was by far the worst one. There are at least 8 groups of 8 people each on this night walk. The land is not that big, so not only can you hear other groups but you can also see them and their flashlights too. Walk ways are big enough for 1 1/2 people but you are constantly having to move and make way for other groups passing you by. Our tour guide was awful. Spend 80% of the time in complete silence. He was so quiet when he did talk and only catered to the people at the front of the group (we were unfortunately in the back). I asked him multiple times to speak up and allow for those in the back to participate and he still didn’t. At one point we were standing at a standstill on the trail only to find out that he was showing everyone at the front a tranatula for 6 minutes and didn’t even include us. Because of how dark and narrow the walkways are it is very easy to be left behind and left out if you are in the back of the groups. There is absolutely no reason for it to be 8 in a group especially since they can’t accommodate that size on a trail without it being a straight line. Look through all the reviews. We saw the exact same things that everyone else did. Spent the first 45 minutes of the walk only seeing an ant colony (I am not lying!). Saw a couple birds, leg of a tarantula, snake, and scorpion. Besides that saw nothing. Not suprised, as I’m not sure what animals would be comfortable beings around 50+ people all talking and with bright lights. Seems like they know where stuff is on the trail and they plan stops at those few things. I’m convinced our tour guide wasn’t even looking for animals and was just waiting for other guides to use their walkie talkie and state where the animals were. It seems we were walking aimlessly 95% of the time. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that you can’t fault nature for not seeing the animals you were expecting. However, the environment they create is so far from inviting for animals that it’s no wonder you barely see anything. This entire places needs a revamp in how they go about these tours. Focus on quality rather than quantity. With the lackluster of animal sightings, the least they could’ve done was provide some knowledge about the forest and animals but they didn’t even do that. Not informative, not interesting, and overall a horrible experience. We were counting down the time until we could leave. I do NOT recommend this...

Oke, so I've got mixed feelings about this tour. My partner and I definitely enjoyed it, but let me ellaborate on the pros and cons:

The pros of this tour: Wildlife. Yes, you will most definitely see wildlife in this somewhat small section of the rainforest. The guides are very skilled and know where to look for the animals. Some animals will be easy, as the tarantula will always be at his lair. Same with the frogs, which will usually sit on their own tree or leaf at night. Other animals, such as the possoms and ant-eaters will be somewhere up in the trees. All the guides are in contact with eachother, so they will notify eachother when seeing something. Another pro of this tour is that includes free pickup from your hotel.

The cons of this tour: Rushed, touristic and anything but serene. To start off with, the nighttour has large groups - somewhere between 8 and 12 people. This makes the whole tour very touristic and you will never feel like you're on a nighttour adventure. When seeing an animal, you will literally have to stand in line to get your photo. To make matters worse, other groups will join as well, so often it will feel like you're hunting/chasing the animals down with a dozen of flashlights.

The whole tour is extremely rushed, it is like a rollercoaster. But not in the good way. From the beginning onwards, we had to run/fast walk for ten minutes in the jungle because another group saw an ant-eater somewhere. Before you know it, you're standing in a group with twenty tourists, all shining their flashlights at something moving in the tree. Yes, it is awesome that you saw an ant-eater, but this whole scenario sort of ruins the moment. The guides are definitely skilled, but will run towards other animals as soon as they know everyone saw the current animals and took their photo. They try to pack as much sightings in a tour, wich - again - ruins the moment.

We had our own flashlight, but actually never got the chance of spotting something for ourselves. We were constantly running behind the tourguide who heard on his radio that there's an animal somewhere. One time I spotted a scorpion somewhere, but due to the rush and noise, it moved away in a matter of seconds.

So the question is: Would I recommend this tour? If you accept that it is going to be touristic, I would definitely recommend it. My point of view: Despite the cons of this tour, it was still pretty awesome seeing that huge tarantula, scorpions and other animals...

First the positives...we actually got to see quite a variety of animals, red kneed tarantula, hummingbird, viper, snail eating snake, sloth, scorpion, frog, kinkajou etc. However, the way the tour was conducted was awful. First of all, there must have been about 200people in this stretch of forest. each group has 12 people and you constantly come across them. The forest is literally overrun. Thus you never have a lot of time looking at anything as there a groups queuing around the animals.Most of the animals will always be at the same spot so I feel really sorry for the poor tarantulas that are being lured out of their nests over and over again for nothing. Our guide Joaquin did not have any people skills and really couldn't judge his group. Our group was mainly elderly people in their 70s and he kept hurrying them along in order to get to the next animal not really caring whether they were struggling or not. It's an accident waiting to happen but hey they make you sign a waiver form in advance so it won't be their problem! Also in order for us to see a frog he made it crawl on a leaf and relocated it closer to us, which I really didn't like. The wildlife here pretty much gets disturbed the whole time. I d steer clear of this tour and try to find a smaller company that isn't that...