Tapir Valley

 January 22: Tapir Valley

We spent much of today at Tapir Valley, a private nature reserve in a mountain valley an hour from Arenal. We had visited Tapir Valley on our 2022 trip, but only for a very misty morning. Today we were better prepared (in keeping with the expression that “there is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing”). The reserve provides muck boots, and with our rain pants and ponchos we were all set for the occasional downpours and the flooded trails.

A word about weather: normally by now the rains have stopped for at least a month, leaves have fallen from the trees, and flowers are in bloom. This year it has been raining since October, so much so that the Central Valley vegetable crops have largely failed and produce prices, especially tomatoes and potatoes, have skyrocketed.  In much of the rest of the country, normal patterns have been disrupted: the leaves are still on the trees, lakes are at 25-year highs, and flowers are delayed. 

Back to Tapir Valley. We waded through trails that were dry three years ago and there were many fewer hummingbirds (because of the lack of flowers)— but we still managed to see many wonderful birds over the course of the morning.  After lunch we returned to yesterday’s private garden… and saw more sloths! This time a mother and baby, almost unbearably sweet. The guides at the garden are high school students doing a summer internship on their path to training as nature guides. To judge from the four teenagers we met yesterday and today, it’s a great idea.

Then in the late afternoon we returned to Tapir Valley for a night walk… but while we waited for it to get dark we saw a tapir calmly feeding in the meadow. We must have watched her for at least a half hour. On the actual night walk we saw frogs and toads and two young fer-de-lance (an extremely poisonous snake). Fortunately they were just hanging out and didn’t seem interested in us. 

Pictured: mother and baby sloths, tapir, fer-de-lance, a trail from today, glass butterfly, yellow-eared toucanet