Monteverde: Night Walk Tour with Wildlife Spotting & Guide

4.83

(313 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

I didn’t really expect to feel nervous just stepping off the path in Monteverde after sunset. But there’s something about that first moment when the light drops and the forest starts humming — not loud, but this low, steady buzz you notice if you stop talking. Our guide, Diego, handed us flashlights (mine had this faint rubbery smell from the handle) and said we’d probably hear more than we’d see at first. He was right. There was this rustle somewhere above us and I swear my heart jumped — turned out to be a sleeping toucan, which is apparently pretty rare to spot at night. Diego grinned like he’d just won a bet.

The air felt heavier as we walked further in, almost sticky on my arms. Someone behind me whispered something in Spanish — I caught “rana,” which Diego explained meant frog. He found one tucked under a leaf, tiny and impossibly green. We all took turns peering through his spotting scope (I nearly dropped my phone trying to get a photo through it — still blurry). The way he pointed out details, like how the insects’ eyes glowed back at us or how some plants closed up for the night, made me pay attention to things I’d never notice on my own.

I kept thinking about how different everything looked in the beam of a flashlight — shadows everywhere, but also these sudden bursts of color when you caught an animal’s eye or a flower that only opened at night. It wasn’t quiet exactly; more like layers of sounds stacked on top of each other. By the end I was tired but kind of wired too. Walking back toward the lights felt weirdly abrupt — like leaving someone else’s world behind.