Monteverde Rain Forest Night Walk

We did our night walk at the beginning of the rainy season, in mid-May, with Johnny. Overall, this was a wonderful tour and an excellent value. Johnny was an amazing guide, spending over 2 hours with us walking the trails of a private nature reserve in Monteverde. Johnny demonstrated his expert knowledge of the area and pointed out tons of wildlife that otherwise wouldn't be visible to the untrained eye. In one visit, we saw sloths, two types of very hard to find frogs, a few armadillos (really cool), and a side-striped pit viper. For me, this was a highlight of the trip and I'm glad that Johnny was able to find a single 18 inch long thin green snake. In a tree. At night. In the middle of a dark forest. Johnny is the consummate naturalist of the Monteverde area - if you're planning to visit Monteverde, Johnny's tour is THE best money that you'll spend.

You will see animals, but do not fright it is a walk in the park. The guide, knowledgeable, eager to provide a pleasant experience

The tour itself was fantastic! We visited a local farm cooperative with Juan as our guide. He was quite knowledgeable about many interesting topics and was able to point out the little critters there that we would surely have missed. This man and his friend who came to get us are not at fault here. The night walk ended much better than it had begun. I had contacted Viator re: who the local contact was and to confirm the time of pick up a few days ahead of the hike. I believe that there was a huge lack of communication between the tour operator someone named Johnny and Viator. It turns out that Johnny had asked Juan who ended up being our guide to fill in for him Johnny was in San Jose that night. Juan's friend, Byron, ended up showing up to pick us up one hour later than we were told. Unfortunately, Byron didn't speak any English and then proceeded to head in the opposite direction of Monteverde Cloud Reserve where we believed our hike to be located I have to say I assumed that a hike labeled 'Monteverde Rainforest Night Walk' does imply that one would be in THE official Monteverde national park area. I immediately called Viator and while the rep was as concerned as we were, I'm not sure what she ultimately could have done if nefarious characters were at play here. It appeared that a huge lack of informational updates I do fault both Viator and the original tour operator was the reason that we were with someone other that our original guide and that no information was passed along to us so that we would know what to expect. Thankfully, both our new guide and his friend were upstanding guys so we did ultimately enjoy our hike. It really just wasn't what we were expecting.