In an attempt to knock out two birds with one stone, I am going to discuss my brief encounter with Costa Rica while also beginning what I hope will be a long series on my favorite parts of travel from all over the world. The "Best Bits" series will highlight my favorite restaurants, accommodations, museums, tours, buildings, coffee shops, etc etc from my various travels.
For this installment, I'd like to talk about the part of my Costa Rican trip that I've been ranting and raving about ever since I experienced it. But it's also the part of my trip that everyone probably overlooks as something I found awesome, but they might not enjoy. 'Bugs and snakes and other creepy crawlies late at night in Costa Rica? No thanks,' is probably what you're thinking. But no! The Night Tour with Tracie "The Bug Lady" is seriously one of the most unmissable and under-priced tours I have ever heard of.
Every night in Drake Bay, Costa Rica - an area on the Osa Peninsula, hours to the southwest of the capital and center of the country - Tracie and Gianfranco team up to show you a side of Costa Rica that would otherwise require a botany degree and years of patience to discover. You gather together as a group of maybe a dozen tour-goers after the sun goes down, where they provide you with headlamps, and the tour immediately begins as they start showing you the unseen life all around you. Within minutes we had already seen several sleeping, seemingly-invisible lizards and iguanas and Gian walked us down an embankment to see a gigantic, dirt-colored Smoky Jungle frog.
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| Tracie and Gian not only find the smallest, neatest creatures (like this glass frog), but they also helpfully arrange picture-taking and closer looks. |
Every night in Drake Bay, Costa Rica - an area on the Osa Peninsula, hours to the southwest of the capital and center of the country - Tracie and Gianfranco team up to show you a side of Costa Rica that would otherwise require a botany degree and years of patience to discover. You gather together as a group of maybe a dozen tour-goers after the sun goes down, where they provide you with headlamps, and the tour immediately begins as they start showing you the unseen life all around you. Within minutes we had already seen several sleeping, seemingly-invisible lizards and iguanas and Gian walked us down an embankment to see a gigantic, dirt-colored Smoky Jungle frog.
