COSTA RICA
July 2003
7 of 7
COSTA RICA
July 2003
7 of 7
We decide to spend our last day in lowland rainforest, returning to a site we had visited the year before. While
Quetzal heads home to Dominical, Ron and I drive towards the Caribbean versant and arrive back at the place where
we were first introduced to Costa Rica.
Wander the trails at the end of day, settling into that comfortable feeling surrounded by layers of green and
shadow. Giant trees, giant bees, giant bullet ants, pearly fungus, and tiny crimson frogs with legs of cobalt blue.
.
High overhead in the canopy, rustling leaves and fragmentary glimpses of monkeys, this time cinnamon-colored
Spiders instead of noisy Howlers or quarrelsome Capuchins.
At night shining the trees, looking for that slender twist of white among the dark leaves and branches, the tell-
tale hint of “snake” searching for prey or sleeping above our heads.
Frogs everywhere in the swamp, sleeping, mating, calling, feeding. Spooky double eye-shine high in the trees
from ghostly Agallychnis in amplexus, their lustrous eggs like glass beads dripping from leaves, flecked with tiny,
twitching tadpoles, carefully placed ornaments clinging to the dark green plants.
A lizard, a few more snakes, and then it’s time to go home.
Our second trip to the rainforests of Costa Rica is over, but the surpassing strangeness of this tropical world is
gradually becoming familiar, the excitement of discovery slowly exchanged for the satisfaction of intimacy. Once
more we leave reluctantly, once more we know we’ll return.
Calico Snake
Oxyrhopus petolarius
Strawberry Dart Frog
Dendrobates pumilio
Yellow Blunt-headed Snake
Imatodes inornatus
Red-eyed Tree Frog
Agallychnis callidryus
Hourglass Tree Frog
Hyla ebraccata
Rainforest Frog
Rana vaillanti
Swamp Tree Frog
Hyla loquax
Stream Anole
Norops oxylophus
Lichen-colored Snail Sucker
Sibon longifrenis
