The Bat Jungle — Attraction in Monteverde

This place does not look like much from the road, in fact, my family and I only stopped because there was a chocolate shop that we wanted to visit. After purchasing our chocolates, I decided to poke my head into the entrance to the Bat exhibit. The man at the desk explained that self-guided tours were available for $5 and guided tours for $12.

My family opted for the self guided tour. We were given flashlights, and led to a dark room, about 5 meters long, with a glass wall. On the other side of the wall were a few dozen bats, flying around a feeding. We spent maybe eight minutes in the room, and decided that the attraction had little more to offer us. We went to return the flashlights, at which point we began conversing with the man at the desk, Vino. Vino had a wealth of information about bats, and explained that he was actually a European zoologist. Vino gave us many facts about local bats, and invited us to take the guided tour if we wished to learn more. We decided to go ahead and do it! Vino gave us a discounted rate (we saved about $15) and we began the official tour.

We spent about thirty minutes in the office, where he taught us about the worlds bat populations and the countless benefits each species offers. When it came time to go back into the "bat cave", Vino actually went inside with the bats and fed them. He then came back out with the group and explained, in detail, about the eating habits of the various species which were on display.

After he was done talking, he went back to the office, but invited us to stay as long as we wanted. When we were satisfied with our experience, we returned the flashlight and thanked Vino for the great time. We are all so glad that we opted to take the guided tour. Vino was incredible informative and very friendly. I would highly recommend this attraction to anyone in the area, especially families with children. If you do plan on going to the Bat Jungle, definitely take the guided tour. The self guided tour is fun for a few minutes, but the guided tour offers about an hour of interactive and educational fun.

Thank you Vino for such a...

Arrived prior to 3 and there were no tours or feeding taking place.

Really didn’t like this place. To start I heard the man at the front today tell someone it’s 7 to get in 5 if you pay in cash . He charged me 6 moments earlier in cash. This sort of dishonesty leads in to question the entire operation. Poor service from customer facing staff aside.

The bats look startled when you shine the given light at them. I am not a bat expert but the animals reaction to having lights pointed in their faces leads me to believe they do not like it.

In my opinion the bats do not have much space to fly. It’s dark but there are lights and visitors shine lights in their faces at what point do the bats get to experience a proper night and day schedule.

The entire exhibit … the jungle… is one very small room with all the bats in one enclosure - see the posted picture of the entire bat enclosure.

I walked the whole exhibit then wandered the building opening storage rooms looking for the rest. I went to ask and the man said yes just the one room

I felt like my money goes to keeping these bats imprisoned. I say this having been to many zoos that I greatly enjoyed where the animals seemed content and well looked after. I do not feel this way about this bat jungle. I have seen other bat enclosures in zoos before and the bats did not behave in the same way as they did in this location.

I left after 5-10 mins feeling bad for the bats. I like to think back home they wouldn’t allow a place like this to operate.

Not worth it. Don’t...

I went here on a whim, seeing the sign on the street, and not expecting much of it except a few cool bats. I got that, but I also got quite a bit more! At the start of the tour, the guide, who is an experienced zoologist, talks all about bats, myths about bats, habits of bats, etc. This sounds somewhat boring, but me and everyone else were hanging on EVERY WORD. This guide has the personality of a nature person on tv. He is like the Steve Irwin of bats. I learned so much about bats, I even used to have a slight phobia of them, and this changed my entire view. You learn so many fascinating things, and then after that, you get to see the bats. In the end of the tour, you go into a room with very large glass panes, and on the other side of them, there are around 30 or so bats. They are hanging from the trees, flying around, and eating all kinds of fruit. It was such a cool thing to see, since they are so up close, and with your new knowledge of bats, you have so much more of an appreciation of them. Quite honestly though, the part of the tour that includes bats wasn’t even as good as the guides lecture on them. I mean honestly, this man needs a spot on discovery channel. So in closing, this is an absolute must-see if you are...