Wildlife Refuge Monteverde — Attraction in Monteverde

We did a wildlife night tour for $45/pp.

Pros: close by, well maintained trails, transportation included in price of entry

Cons: Kind of a lot, we did not have a great time.

We had a relatively small group. 4 people for one guide and he was training a younger guide as well. The tour was in English though most of the group spoke both Spanish and English fluently, and I can understand Spanish for the most part but not perfectly. The tour guide spoke really strong English, but I'm just calling this out to say language was no barrier.

We start the tour pretty strong! We are all excited and we see a cocoon right away and he teaches us a little about it. We all take our pictures and are happy. Then we are sprinting! We are speed running this trail, our guide is way in front of us and we are trying to keep up. He makes no small talk with us. He never really asks about our trip or where we are visiting from. He is also so far ahead of us that we can't talk to him unless we call him back. I kid you not, we see NOTHING for like 10-15 minutes so I'm kind of walking slower and finding cool bugs on my own and showing the group. He's so far ahead that I don't even have the opportunity to ask him about them if I wanted to. Then we get scolded for going too slow and being too far behind him. MIND YOU, we paid $45 and 15min into the tour all we have seen is a static cocoon that they probably all knew was there.

Eventually the trainee finds a wolf spider. We all stop to look at it and while we are stopped, an ant crawls onto someone in the group and bit her. She was squeamish cause we are looking at a giant spider, so she freaks out a little bit because she thought it was a spider. Our guide, no joke, scolds her!! He was kind of mean! He told us to stay on trail (we were) and to stop flashing our flashlights because we were attracting bugs. After this incident, I swear our tour guide acted like he hated us. He barely talked to any of us at all.

I think he found one or two sleeping birds after another like 5min. Finally we get near some other tours and those guides had found a bunch of stuff and told our guide where to look so at the end we just went to some spots that other guides told him about. We saw a sleeping Toucan and two green vipers.

I was jealous when we passed the other groups cause their guides were teaching them so much about random bugs and stuff and they sounded really nice. They even joked and talked with my friend and I, even though we weren't part of their group.

We ended the tour in silence. Literally the tour ended so abruptly and he was just like "see ya". By the end it was obvious our guide really did not like us. I don't know if it was the ant incident, or cause we obviously weren't super impressed that he didn't find that much on his own. Even if we found nothing and he taught us about what animals lived there, the plants, or the bugs, I would have been stoked! I'm such a nerd for tours like these and have done really good ones other places during this trip to Costa Rica.

Oh also at one point I full on slipped and fell and he seemingly didn't notice at all haha. But I'm glad because I was scared he was going to yell at me...

So, first things first: our guide for the night walk was wonderful. He was very kind and did his best to ensure we had a good experience. However, there were a few things I wish I'd known before. We thought we were paying for a private tour- we were, in a way, but there were like 8 "private" tours with individual guides happening at the same time, in the same relatively small area. We could see and hear other groups most of the time and kept passing each other on the trails. There was also another set of tours that took place right before ours (at 6; our tour was at 8). The problem is I can't imagine you're ever going to see many animals when the small area of forest is so full of people tramping around, making noise and shining lights in all the trees.

I also expected to see nocturnal animals on a night walk, but at least half of the animals we saw were animals that the guide woke up so we could take a picture. Birds nesting in trees were spotlighted over and over, and our guide even kept shaking the trees they were in to wake them up so we could get a photo. I can see daytime animals during the day; I didn't sign up for a night walk to disturb sleeping animals for an unnecessary photo op.

And finally, because there are so many tours happening in the same area at the same time, the guides were constantly calling, texting, and video chatting each other to tell each other where they saw something. It makes sense that they do that, but it's just a bunch more noise and disturbing animals, and I felt like our guide spent a significant chunk of the 2 hour time period on his phone in these exchanges.

I wish I'd known all is this beforehand and I would have gone with a different nighttime experience. I recommend looking into the Monteverde Cloud Forest Wildlife Preserve; the whole organization is VERY conservation minded and focused on protecting the animals from disturbance, and the trails are extensive and the most well-kept I've seen in Costa Rica. We didn't do their night hikes, but if I come back, I...

There are many night tours to choose from but I can't imagine any could be better than the one we took. Reasons: small group size (6 plus guide) and the incredible knowledge and experience level of our guide.

We would have been happy to see three or four animals. We saw 12! Our guide, Antonio, had about 15 years of experience as a guide. He carried a powerful flashlight and as we walked he surveyed the treetops. He knew where to look based on where animals like to hang out and where they had been on previous days. The guides also communicate among themselves and share info about their finds.

When Antonio located an animal he pointed it out both with his flashlight beam and by circling it with a laser pointer. He carried a spotting scope on a tripod that we could use to see the animal up close with about the same magnification as binoculars. But with the scope we could also take pictures. Antonio was knowledgeable about the animals and told us about them. (His English is completely fluent.) In addition to his expertise Antonio was also very considerate, warning us when the footing was rough and making sure everyone got a chance to look through the scope.

The animals we saw were: Mantled howler monkey Side-striped palm pit viper Rainbow billed toucan (aka keel-billed toucan) Giant flying cockroach Sloth Glass frog Moss-mimicking walking stick Bransford's litter frog Giant banded anole Central American wolf spider Horn-headed katydid Bat

This was an unforgettable experience...