Sorry to say that due to extensive traveling this winter I have fallen behind on sending out my eColumn. Therefore I am sending out several columns at once. Please be advised there is no picture with this story. I am sure you will enjoy it non-the-less. Enjoy. Stan
Remember my newest book, The Lives of Wolves, Coyotes and Foxes is not available. Go to www.adventurepublications.net or call 800-678-7006 to order a copy.
I think you would agree with the statement that the desert and the rainforest are two very different habitats. They are different in just about any way you want to measure. Would you agree? This is the very thing that was going through my head just two nights ago as I was walking through the mid-level jungle rainforest of central Costa Rica. However I wasn’t thinking of it the way you might expect.
If you have followed my columns in the past you know how much I love the desert and how much time I spend in the desert. It is one of my most favorite places. I know the desert well and enjoy it immensely. But now that I am here in the jungle, I am thinking there are so many similarities between the two habitats.
One of my favorite things to do in the desert is to go out at night. During the day the desert seems lifeless and devoid of life. But at night the desert comes to life with all sorts of crazy cool critters. All you need is some courage and a bright flashlight and the desert is yours to explore. Turns out the same is true for the rainforest.
On my second night in Costa Rica my photography partner and I decided to go out and explore the jungle at night. Just like the desert the jungle comes to life at night. So many more critters come out during the relative cool evening. The amount of insects, mammals, reptiles and amphibians that become active at night is crazy.
We grab our high power flashlights and head out in the darkness. We have our cameras and we have high hopes of finding something cool to photograph. We walk down a gravel road that winds it’s way down the side of the mountain. It’s not long before we realized this was way to tame for us. Nothing interesting or cool to be seen here so we headed back up the mountain road.
We get back up to our lodge and this time headed out into the jungle on a narrow winding path, no more than two feet wide. As you might expect pathways in the jungle tend to grown in quickly unless they are maintained and cut back. This trail was no exception. Using our flashlights we would scan the trail in front of us as we moved along. A hundred different insects were calling along with many species of toad and frog. As I said before the jungle comes to life after dark.
At some point we decided we had gone far enough, but before we turn around we stopped and switched off our flashlights to get a sense of the darkness in the jungle. We waited several minutes in the darkness for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. However we realized that our eyes were already adjusted and yet we couldn’t see anything. I looked up through the forest canopy and I could catch a glimpse of the stars burning brightly. Man this place is dark at night.
Our discussion quickly went to how native peoples handled the darkness in primitive times. How difficult it must have been just survive in the jungle environment with no flashlights or modern equipment. We switched on our lights and start back down the trail. The warm night air was filled with many smells of earth, flowers and so many more things we couldn’t identify.
At one point the trail was cut into the side of the mountain. The path was no more than 3 feet wide total with about 12 inches of walking space. To our left was the hillside, so close that if you lifted your left arm you could brush up against the moss and ferns that were growing there. To our right was a steep drop off. There was definitely no room for error here. The trail took a sharp turn to the left and just as we were making the turn I could hear my photo partner say, hey look at this. I turned to see him shinning a light on a very large snake on the hillside to our immediate left.
With just one look we knew that this was a Fer-de-Lance, which is Costa Rica’s most deadly venomous snake. And this was a large one, at least four feet long and possibly five feet. In a split second the snake propelled itself off the wall, landing at our feet which elicited a quick step back on our part. We tried to shine our lights on it to get some images while still remaining at a safe distance. The snake didn’t want anything to do with us and was already heading across the tail and into the leaves. We tried but we were unable to get any images.
Just after the snake headed off into the darkness of the jungle we talked about how we had unknowingly walked right past this poisonous snake with just inches between us. Yikes. We headed back to our lodge with one amazing story to tell. In the next column I will report on some of the adventures here in Costa Rica. Until next time
Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the US to study and photograph wildlife. He can be followed on facebook and twitter or visit his web page at www.naturesmart.com