Onward: Monteverde, a Night Hike, and the ever Elusive Two-Lipped Katydid

The end of our Costa Rician vacation was drawing near and we had one more city to discover, Monteverde.  With a late start to the day we quickly became famished and would have to make two stops along the way - one to forage, the other, spontaneous.  Needing a place for sustenance we looked for a sign, any sign, or roughly 300 of them - we passed countless signs for the "World Famous" Toad Hall.  We arrived as the restaurant was preparing a large table reserved for a tour group.  We perused the grounds and much to our delight Toad Hall has a small wildlife refuge; complete with a rescued toucan, several parrots, and a terrarium.  While I am inclined to doubt the worldwide recognition of this establishment, we nonetheless left pleasantly satiated.  The second impromptu stop caught us by surprise - no car trouble this time, rather, a wildlife crossing.

When writing about the Jaguar Rescue Center in Puerto Viejo, I spoke of monkeys mistaking power lines as vines or branches.  Fortunately, many parts of the country are becoming proactive on the issue and Costa Ricans have been tying ropes between trees as a safer means of travel.  While driving to Monteverde, we stumbled upon one of these ropes.  Julie spotted a howler monkey in the tree and immediately requested that I stop the car - obligingly, I pulled over and we all got out of the car and witnessed a whole troop of howler monkeys crossing the road.  For fifteen minutes we carefully observed our first monkey crossing, but the monkeys became bored with their spectators and departed, mirroring the monkeys and were back on our way.

The first to go

Mother and baby came later

Reached the other side

This tree looks a lot like the last tree

Another member

Mother and baby again

We arrived at  Rainbow Valley Lodge late in the afternoon and we checked-in with our guide/concierge, Christian.  After quickly settling ourselves, we went out to walk the town of Santa Elena, Monteverde searching potential restaurants for dinner - ultimately, we ended up at Restaurante Tree House.  We enjoyed the food, beer, and ambiance while discussing plans for our short stay in Monteverde.  The next day we scheduled to hike the Cloud Forest, but we felt the need to add an activity into this evening - and what's better than a night hike (Christian helped make the arrangements).  We arrived at the reserve shortly before the first group's night hike had ended, a very popular tour as two tour buses filled half the parking lot.

Members of our group who didn't have a flashlight were provided one, the guide expressed the importance of staying on the trail and talking should be no louder than a whisper.  Our hike started around 21:00 and in the hour-plus of our trek we saw a grey fox, bats, sleeping birds, and even copulating eyelash vipers.  Although, as time progressed, our group grew restless with our tour guide and his quirky ineptness.  He meant well and did the best he could given the circumstances, however, our guide became hopelessly devoted to finding a two-lipped katydid.  So much so, he would sprint off the trail at odd intervals, digging through the brush - attempting to audibly sift through the multitude of noises.  This happened on multiple occasions and to no avail, the closest any of us would get to a two-lipped katydid would be a quick Google image search*.  The most interesting sighting of the tour was a solitary eyelash viper delicately wrapped around the low lying flora in a striking position.  It was evident that the next rodent to pass by this snake would surely be dinner, only, dinner almost came in the form of a young Swiss tourist.  This teenager decided to get within a foot of the pit viper to take a picture of the snake while using the flash on his camera...the sheer stupidity.  No one got hurt and the tour ended anticlimactically - suffice it to say this wasn't our most thrilling experience, but was still something fun to do on a night without any plans.


*Strangely enough, the first image provided by Google when searching "two lip katydid" is a picture of Katy Perry.  I am unsure as to the relationship between the musician and the insect, however, it is assumed that the artist's music and the chirping cacophony of the katydid are one  in the same.

Dog eating corn comes in at number six, almost beating out the katydid.