Our Twelfth Trip to Costa Rica
November 17 to 24th, 2007
First Day (11/17/08)
This trip started off for me in two ways; first, my girlfriend Anne was traveling with me and second, we were coming in from Panama where we had just spent a week. Our trip from Panama City was only an hour and ten minutes into San Jose, CR. The airport was going under some renovations since I was here in May of this year. We were bussed from the plane into the airport; once inside there was a very long line waiting to get into the Immigration area. We were working our way in line when we caught a break, a guard let Anne and I go into the Costa Rican citizens’ line, which was empty at the moment. That saved us 20 to 30 minutes. Once we got our bags and made it through customs, we got outside, but just missed our bus to the hotel. The hotel representative said 30 minutes for the next bus; it took an hour. When we walked in the hotel lobby, I spotted Shawn who was on the Nov. trip in 2005. We shook hands and I introduced him to Anne. He introduced me to Dav, who came from Toronto, Canada to join our herp trip. Shawn and Dav had found each other waiting in the Hotel lobby. Herpers aren’t hard to pick out. We always find each other, it must be the pheromones or something. We had one more. Oyvind was making his second trip with us from Oslo, Norway, but his plane wouldn’t arrive until later in the evening. After enjoying Happy Hour at the hotel bar and dinner at Denny’s, we packed it in for the night. Around 10:30 I heard a pounding at the door – it was Oyvind, who was unable to get his room and had been told that there were no available rooms. I got dressed to go downstairs to straighten it out, and there were people lying all over the lobby floor. It was a large group (over 500) bikers who had just completed a bike trip from the Carribbean side to the Pacific. They were really tired, and the three guys behind the desk were working their fannies off trying to get them rooms. I leaned over the counter and found the envelope with Oyvind’s name on it that I had left for him. I grabbed it and we headed for our rooms.
Second Day (Sunday, November 18th. 2007)
Everyone was up and in the restaurant by 7 AM. We had our hotel breakfast, and by 8 o’clock I was at Alamo renting the two cars we would have for the week. We were soon off on our two hour drive to the Villa Lapas. Shortly before our arrival we stopped at the Rio Tarcoles Bridge to see the crocodiles basking in the sun on the river’s edge. We checked in, but they had a large group and our rooms weren’t ready so we had a nice lunch. But of course, one of our herpers, Dav, jumped on a big Spiney-tail Iguana and out came the cameras. After that, we started across the suspension bridge over the river and started hunting. Everyone that was seeing them for the first time were amazed at the labors of the leaf-cutting ants. (Atta cephalotes) Unfortunately, the only herps we came up with were a couple of dart frogs. After an hour or two of walking the trails, we came back and our rooms were ready. Everyone got cleaned up, took a short rest, and we met at our table at the restaurant for dinner. Since there were only five of us, Anne. Dav and myself went in one car and Shawn and Oyvind went in the other for our first night of road cruising. Before hitting the road, I gave a short demonstration on how we collect hot snakes in a very safe manner. Dav was super enthusiastic about a fer-de-lance. I explained to him that these are a lot more than the pit vipers that we are used to handling in the states. They are fast and very aggressive. Of course, I tell this to everyone that comes on our trips, and everyrbody either believes me or thinks that I am being super-conservative. And on occasion we will come across a Fer-de-lance that makes me look like I’m exaggerating, but these guys are few and far between. The first snake we came across was a four-foot fer-de-lance, and I was able to stop the car with him directly in the headlights. Dav was all excited; he was going to get his shot, and he was out of the car in no time. After getting the bagger out of the trunk, he was approching the snake. The snake was still, but he knew we were there. I told Dav he would have one shot at him while he was still to get him into the bag, and after that who knows what would happen. As Dav put the bagger in front of the snake, the snake jumped into the air and turned and started heading off the road. Dav tried to hook him, and the snake jumped again, and again for the third time – then he was off the road. I know I was glad to see him go, I think, at that point, Dav wasn’t sorry to see him go either. – This guy was typical of many of the fer-de-lances we encounter at night on the road. As we drove off, Dav was saying how much he appreciated my warning of the aggressive nature of these snakes – It was certainly more than he anticipated. A short while later, we encountered another fer-de-lance – this one was only two feet long.
He also was a jumper, but Dav had no problem bagging him. At this point we had our fer-de-lance for photos tomorrow, and we generally only collect one per trip for photographs. We later encountered another, and Dav used his hook to coax him off the road. We met up with the other car, and they hadn’t found a thing. We got back to the hotel about 1 AM and the other guys came in behind us. They did find one Fer-de-lance DOR.
Third Day (Monday, 11/ 19/07)
After breakfast we did our usual climb up the mountain, which is about a 2 and a half hour climb and about 45 minute to an hour return. We would be back at lunch if all went well. We do this climb each trip, and sometimes we’re lucky and sometime we’re not. As I’ve mentioned before there is a lot of jungle out there and a lot of places for herps to be. We did see some ameivas and dart frogs, but this time no snakes. Some of the things that caught Anne’s attention were the five suspension bridges, the steepness of the climb, the beautiful waterfalls and tumbling streams below the bridges, lots of butterflies and birds. She was especially grateful for the rope hand rails that enabled her to pull herself up some of the steepest parts of the trail and the walking stick that provided rest and balance along the way. A huge termite nest surrounding the trunk of a tree was something she had never seen before. Finally we made it to the top, and Oyvind had brought a GPS with him, which he used to determine that we were at just about 1,000 feet at the very top. When we started at the bottom, we were at close to 100 feet. The view from that peak was amazing. We could see the Tarcoles River and the crocodile bridge, as well as where the River empties into the Pacific Ocean. In the far distance we could see a cruise ship docked at the Port of Caldera, about a 45 minute ride by car from the Villa Lapas. We made it back down the mountain in time for a wonderful lunch, and the best part of that was the ice cold beer. After lunch the guys hunted the woods across the river and caught a Brown Vine Snake
and 3 Cat-eyed Snake. When Anne and I encountered them later in the afternoon, they were all on their hands and knees taking photograph after photograph. That night we decided not to road cruise, and we drove to the top of the mountain and hunted the first three bridges without finding any aditional snakes. Hunting the trails at night is one of the coolest things you can do on this trip, even without finding a herp. It’s like a magical encounter – everything is quiet except the wildlife, and the stars just glisten down on you filling you with wonder..
Fourth Day (Tuesday 11/20/07)
After breakfast we planned to go to Carara National Park. The park has two trails; we would do the North trail in the morning and the South in the afternoon after lunch. The North trail often has standing water on it; this day was no exception- in fact it was the worst I’ve seen it. The trail is actually a dirt road that they run four wheel trucks on to patrol the park. Running these trucks makes the road muddy, I mean real muddy. Oyvind and Dav rented rubber boots when we paid for our tickets, not a bad idea. I was wearing sandals, Anne was in tennis shows and Shawn was in ankle high boots. The road looked OK until we went around the first bend. There was water a short distance ahead. It started out ankle deep and a hard bottom, but not for long. It got deeper and muddier quick. Anne was OK because she brought a walking stick from the hotel. I found a stick about 10 feet long. Without the stick I would have fallen. The mud would hold your foot sometimes and sometimes not; this made it hard to balance. We finally came to some banana trees where two years before Shawn, Oyvind and I, plus a few others caught a giant parrot snake. That was a “Hail Mary” catch two years ago, even Doug Flutie couldn’t have engineered a better catch. Well, guess what, Oyvind spotted a parrot snake high up in the banana leaves. He was a least fifteen feet above the ground, but I had my 10 foot walking stick. I used the stick to get his body hanging between two leaves and try knock him to the ground. It worked “Hail Mary Two”. Shawn went down in the mud but made the catch.
This one turned out to be a Mexican Parrot Snake. One thing about parrot snakes is they will always gap their mouths wide upon and try to look real bad. This is mostly for show; I’ve never had one actually try to bite me. Everyone had their cameras out getting close up shots of the Parrot Snake with his mouth open. Oyvind and Dav couldn’t enough. The poor snake had to close his mouth but they would keep flipping their hands at the snake to open it again. Finally Dav wanted a picture of him kissing the snake. You guessed it! The snake latched on to his lip. After working the snake off of his lip, Dav thought better of romancing the snake. By now the snake had had enough of these guys with their picture taking. The snake then bit Oyvind on the hand and managed to get a good bite, making contact with his rear-fangs. Oyvind felt a stinging at the bite, and the skin around the bite turned red, but didn’t swell.
A little while later Anne and I had enough mud and headed back. I would pick up the guys at 12:30 at the entrance. By the time we got to the beginning I remembered the car keys were in Shawn’s pocket. So Anne and I waited until they came out. By this time Oyvind hand was still hurting and he was feeling a little nauseous. After lunch Oyvind said he was going to lie down for a while. Anne and I went into Jaco so I could set up a Sea Snake hunting trip for tomorrow. Later we tried going back to the park, but they were closed. They closed at 4 PM. At dinner we decided not to go road crusing that night because we had to be on the beach at 7 AM to try our luck at finding Sea Snakes. We went up to the top of the Sky Walk and hunted down to the third bridge with no luck. Oyvind stayed in his room close to the toilet; he had developed upset stomach from the Parrot Snake bite.
Fifth Day (Wednesday 11/21/07)
We all got to the restaurant just as the kitchen staff were starting to move around. They open for breakfast at 6:30 AM; we needed to leave at 6:30 to be at the beach at 7:00 AM. We were able to get coffee and some fruit, a light breakfast but better then none. We all piled into one car, and by 7 o’clock we were pulling up to the beach. We grabbed all our gear, locked the car, and I saw the taxi boat pulling up to the beach. We all got into the boat and we were off. A short ride beyond the breakers, and we were boarding the boat we would be using for the hunt. I said “Hola” to our Captain “Chino”; he started the engine and we were headed for the deep blue. I said to myself “Boy! I can’t believe how smooth things are going today”. About a minute later it hit me: I had forgotten to bring the net to catch the snakes with and the box to put them in. I grabbed Chino by the arm and explained the problem. He turned the boat around then called the taxi boat to pick us up and take us back to the beach. So much for smooth sailing. Anne and I made the round trip to the hotel and back in 45 minutes. Soon we were all back on the water. The wind was very light, that’s good I thought. The sky was over cast with no sun shining through, that’s bad I thought. Then I remembered a day very similar to this with white caps but we still found Sea Snakes. So, I figured we had a least a 50/50 chance. Maybe a half hour later Shawn spotted the first snake. I passed him the net as Chino brought the boat into position. Shawn made a try but the snake moved around the bow of the boat out of Shawn’s reach. He passed the net over to me and I got him in the net. We had one and the pressure was off. As the day went on, we spotted 16 Sea Snakes and caught 12 of them.
Everyone caught one or more including Anne who had never caught a snake in her life. An interesting point about these snakes is that only three of them were normal size; the rest were all small like this year’s crop. In the past years I had never found even one as small as these. Also everyone caught a dolphin, which were small, but tasted great at dinner. After dinner that night Shawn said he wanted to hunt around the river in back of the hotel. Oyvind, Dav and I want road cruising. Anne opted to stay around and catch up on some reading. On the road we came across a Fer-de-Lance, Coral Snake and a Oxyrhopus Petola all DOR. Shawn, caught a Night Lizard (which was the first I’d evern seen) and got a beautiful picture of a Glass Frog.
Sixth Day (Thursday 11/22/07)
We all sat down to a nice slow and easy breakfast and talked about our plans for the day. That is except Shawn he’s was out on the hotel grounds taking pictures of Toucans. One of the trees have a type of berry on it and the toucans were there for breakfast. It was Thanksgivings in the tropics and there would be no turkey or pumpkin pie at the hotel today. This only effected Shawn, Anne and I, but we were very thankful to be here in the middle of the rain forest. For Oyvind and Dav it was just another day in paradise. Today Shawn, Oyvind and Dav would go into Jaco for a little shopping. Anne and I would meet with Carol a Realtor and a friend on mine who move to Costa Rica from the Keys two years ago. She has showed me a condo at Nativa which is 240 acer devolopment about two kilometors down the street from the Villa Lapas. This would be the third time I’ve been to the project and I wanted to show it to Anne. Carol picked us up a the hotel and we drove over to the project around noon. We check out the property and Anne took some pictures. After we went to lunch at Los Suenos, they had a special on turkey dinner and pumpkin pie and we all went for that, almost like home. The rest of the day we stayed by the pool and the guys hunted the trails around the hotel. Dav and Oyvind caught a cat-eye snake.
Shawn came across a 5 foot racer which he had his hands on for a second but pulled lose in the roots of a tree. He saw him again two minutes later but again the racer won. He called to me for help and sent Anne to get the other guys, we had five of us around the area where the racer made it into the bush. We walk all though the area but no racer. Later in the afternoon Dav caught a beautiful two-foot Boa on the trail across the river.
Seventh Day (Friday 11/23/07)
Well, this morning the reality is starting to set in. What we do today is it. Tomorrow is a travel day and no one is looking forward to it. Today will be the last of herping, so we better make it count, I told the group. But before we going hunting we decided that we would go on the Zip-Line. Except for myself this will be the first time on the Zip-Line for our Herpers. First we have to put on your safety gear then we walk into the rain forest on the other side of the river. When we walk for a while until we come to a small hill, which we clime then cross to a platform which put us half way up a tree. This is our starting place we have eight segments until we’re back to the hotel, that about a half of a mile riding under the cable. It’s great fun and everyone enjoyed it especially Anne. Today we will hunt around on the hotel trails and tonight we’ll be on the road. We’ll be straining our eyes looking for a snake crossing the road, but tonight we will have an extra pair of eyes. My friend Mike who move to Costa Rica two years ago from Miami. It’s funny how we met; one day I get a call from him, he said he’s calling from Costa Rica and he just saw my picture on the internet. He said to himself, I know that guy. He knew me from a herp club in Miami about fifteen years ago. He said he was looking up Sea Snakes and a link lead him to me on Hiss ‘n’ Things web site. I came down last January and Mike and I did a little herping together in a part of the country I had not visited before. I was very glad Mike was able to join us tonight. Later on the road I said to myself, if we don’t see something soon, we’ll start imagining that every shadow or stick is a snake. Well, I learned a long time ago that “You Can’t See Them, If They Aren’t There”. We want to bring our numbers up and find a spcies that Hiss ‘n’ Things have never caught before on any of our trips. By dinner that night our numbers have not moved. After dinner we loaded up the cars and hit the road. Every once in a while our cars would meet up on the road. I would always say did you guys get anything? For the three times that we met on the road the answer was always the same “NO”. We didn’t even see a road kill, which I’m always happy to see no snake had been killed, but I figure they all made it across without meeting up with us or the car of another driver. Our car got back to the hotel a little ahead of Shawn and the other guys. I came out of room when they pulled up to ask again. No snakes – but they did score a mud-turtle. Well, “You Can’t See Them, If They Aren’t There”.
Standing Mario, Anne, Dav. Sitting Shaun, Oyvind, Jim.
I told everyone the night before that I wanted us to leave the Villa Lapas by 9 AM. I had a late return on the cars, but if I got them back after 12 noon; I would be charged an extra day. We got out of there a little after 9 o’clock and that made me happy. Shawn was driving the car with Oyvind and Dav, I was driving with Anne and we were giving Mike a ride back to San Jose. We had gone about ten kilometers when I saw a couple of police cars pulling over cars, I was hoping they would be fill up with all the cars they could handle. But, luck wasn’t with me I wasn’t worried because on coming cars had flashed their lights at me giving the universal warring that cops are ahead. I was only going the speed limit. He wanted to see my drivers license and passport. I showed him my license and a copy of my passport. He said next time I should get my passport copy stamped at the airport showing the date of arrival. Then he saw Mike sitting in the back with no seatbelt on. $20 ticket it we pay there or 30% more it I pay at the car rental company, Mike paid. We stopped for gas as Shawn was running on fumes. Then we dropped Oyvind off at the airport, he was the only one leaving that day. The rest of us went back to the Irazu and dropped the cars there. Mike took a bus home from there. Shawn was leaving early Sunday morning, Anne and I were leaving early Monday morning and Dav was staying in Costa Rica for another two weeks.
Another great trip!!
Can’t wait to do it again! And I hope you will be with me on the next one!!
Jim
Species List
The following is a list of snakes our herpers encountered on our trip to Costa Rica Nov. 17th to 24th 2007.
| Species | Common Name | Live | DOR |
| Boa Constrictor | Boa | 1 | 1 |
| Bothrops asper | Fer de Lance | 3 | 2 |
| Leptodeira annulata | Cat-eye Snake (Common) | 1 | 0 |
| Leptodeira septentrionalis | Cat-eye Snake (Northern) | 5 | 0 |
| Leptophis ahaetulla | Parrot Snake (Giant) | 0 | 1 |
| Leptophis mexicana | Parrot Snake (Mexican) | 1 | 0 |
| Mastigodryas malanolomus | Neotropic Racer | 1 | 0 |
| Micrurus nigrocinctus | Coral Snake | 0 | 1 |
| Oxybelis aeneus | Brown Vine Snake | 2 | 0 |
| Oxybelis fulgidus | Green Vine Snake | 0 | 1 |
| Pelamis platurus | Sea Snake | 16 | 0 |
| Un-identify | 0 | 1 | |
| TOTAL | 38 | 30 | 8 |
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Last Updated February 13, 2008
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