Nocturnal Night Walks at Pacuare

The rain clouds are still shrouding our volcano in mystery. They slide their way up towards the top and they swirl down to the valley floor.  They bunch up and stack on top of each other to create their own rendition of a volcano that is much bigger and more fluffly than the one they are hiding.  Right now they are covering the volcano with a wall of white mist that begins as a grayish-blue haze behind the trees and gets brighter and whiter as it reaches upwards - the sky is one huge cloud of white. 

I'm sitting on our balcony, starting my day with what has become my favorite daily ritual - toastlettes with nutella and coffee.  It's so good, sometimes I treat myself and start my afternoon with it as well.  This delicious combination is so simple yet so delicious, and it brings back wonderful memories.  When I was studying abroad in Italy my host mom Nunzia would always be there in the kitchen when i woke up, poised and ready to start steaming the milk for my latte to accompany the toastlettes (they're crunchy, toasty little pieces of bread you buy from the store) with nutella she had waiting on the breakfast plate, usually accompanied by fruits or eggs or sometimes even a pastry.  Spreading the craemy chocolatey spread onto the crispy toastlettes, dipping them into my steamy coffee drink, then letting all the flavors and textures of this breakfast delicacy splash together never got old. And it still hasn't.

The coffee, the toastlette, the clouds

Aah, the toastlettes... Anyways, back to the point of this post. As you probably already guessed, when I started writing I intended to draw from my experiences on our night walks at Pacuare instead of my morning routine at the house of dreams.   As you already saw from Kirby's post about our time there, we were living deep(ish) in the jungle with a lot of time on our hands.  Going on night missions to catch glimpses of frogs (and whatever else might be creeping around in the dark) was one of my favorite activities not just because of the sights but also the sounds.  There are so many noises in the jungle and they completely surround you with such force that you can literally feel the vibrations of the creatures all around you even though you see only a tiny fraction of them.  Our first night walk we saw some lizards sleeping in trees and some crabs scuttling around, but the frogs, serpents, and crocodiles eluded us.  We did see a spider (one of the half-the-size of your face kind) descend from high in the trees onto the ground just a few feet from us, though, and this event was the main reason Kirby decided to skip the next night walk.  The next walk featured less spiders and more frogs, including with the appearance of what seems to be Costa Rica's most popular frog.  Luckily we'd seen one a few nights earlier and Kirby was able to spend some more quality time with it in the safe and comfortable dining hall instead of the fearsome jungle.  Not that our cabin at Pacuare was much different, with all our spiders, snakes, and bats we had as roommates.

Danilo, our fearless leader!

These toads (sapos) were our most popular nocturnal friends. They came out just after the sun went down and stayed out all night.  Bathroom visits were prime time for spottings and it was sometimes hard not to step on them - we were so tired and they were all over the place! 

Don't know what this little guy was but he was very cute. I really felt for him - the jungle is a scary place to be a small and furry animal. 

The red eyed tree frog climbing up Danilo! Notice that he is wearing a T-shirt.  On our first walk with him I thought, "hey, its hot out here and Danilo is wearing just a tank top. Maybe I'll take off my long sleeve and wear MY tank top." Bug bites like crazy the next day... guess I'm not ready to live like the Ticos yet.

He's so cute I had to give you another shot!

This snake was soooo long and skinny. My finger covered my flash in a wierd way and it makes him look kind of diabolical I think. Do you see it?

This was an extra special treat! One night I was going pee and noticed this guy on the door of the stall in front of me - molting! He's leaving his old brown shell behind and his new wings havent even spread yet. Watching him pull himself out of his old skin was fascinating! 

Kirby thought that last picture was too gross to end with, so I popped this little guy in to leave you on a good note!

I know that even though these creatures of the night are pretty amazing, what you're really craving is more moth pics! Don't worry, we've got monster moths coming out soon - the biggest of the biggest. Then I'll just save the rest for the video :) We have plenty of time for editing now that we're chillin in the house of dreams. We've been really living it up and every meal is a flavor adventure now that we have ample ingredients in our well-stocked fridge. We're about to go grocery shopping now, actually.  Provecho! (that's kind of like saying bon apetit)  Oh, also, guess what? The volcano popped out of the clouds on our walk over here!  Now we can eat our meals as they were meant to be eaten - with a view of the volcano!