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Costa Rica Trip/ Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopkins Holesale Herps
My Trip to Costa Rica!
Well, I went to Costa Rica (click here for a map of the Country) on a herping trip this past Nov. 2003 and I wanted to share my experience there with you. I went with a group led by Jim Kavney with Hiss & Things out of the FL Keys. It was a very small tour group with Just myself and my wife, Jim the trip leader and Pete Mooney from New Jersey. It made for a intimate trip with lots of one on one time and the ability for me to ask a lot of stupid questions, seeing this was my first multi day trip abroad herping. The trip is a good eight day journey through the rain forest of the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. We would be Staying at an Eco Resort called Via La Paz, that is nestled beautifully in some of the most pristine rain forest left in Central America. The resort is an all inclusive resort, which means that all of your meals, drinks and yes even alcohol, is included in the price of your stay. Jim Kavney had put together a extremely well priced trip that included airfare, a rental vehicle for the group, and the hotel and resort rooms. I figured it to be a good first trip for me, the cost was inexpensive, so if it turned out to be a bust I wouldn’t be out too much and I would know better next time. Boy was I pleasantly surprised!  Click Here to visit my Costa Rica Photo Album!
We met Jim at the Miami Airport and after a few confusing moments at check in we were on board a big 767 jet from Martin Air. The flight was just two hours and forty minutes long, but they still fed us a meal. We arrived at San Jose, Costa Rica Customs and after a short wait we went right through and to our hotel for the night. We Stayed at the Best Western for the first night, sat down and the bar and got acquainted with Jim. Stacy and I had never been on an extended herping trip, I go trekking through the swamps here in south FL and we have taken quite a few vacations to some of the Caribbean Islands, but this would be our first “Jungle Trip” and we were pretty nervous about roughing it in the wilds. I did not realize what Jim’s  idea of roughing it was. We had a few beers, told some herp stories and called it a night. In the morning we would get our rental car and head out to the Eco Lodge Villa La Paz which would be our home for the next 7 days.
The sun rises very early in Costa Rica and by 5am it was bright outside and I was ready to go! I coached Stacy out of bed and by 7am we were down at the Denny’s Restaurant eating breakfast, this would be the only meal we had to pay for, for the rest of the trip. Jim came down shortly afterwards and joined us. I think he was surprised to see us up so early and moving around. We ate breakfast and Stacy and I took a walk around the hotel while Jim arranged for our rental car. Sometime after 10am we were on the road to Villa La Pa, a two hour drive from San Jose. Apparently Jim had spent a lot of time here in the past because he drove like a local (called Ticas), you see in Costa Rica the person with the right of way in traffic is the person who gets there first! The horns on cars are used just to let you know that “yes I am going to cut you off and you better stop because I will not!”. But with Jim’s expert guidance we arrived safely, if not slightly car sick.
The resort was just inside of Jaco, a beach community that is popular with US surfers. It is located just over the Torcoles River and on the side of a mountain. Some of the roads had some minor blocking from small mud slides, but this is a every day part of doing business in this area. The locals keep earth moving equipment right on the sides of the roads, so when some of the mountain comes down, they quickly get it out of the way, most of the times you don’t even realize that the mountain had slid down. When we arrived at the resort, the first thing that caught my eye was how beautiful the property was maintained. Everything was landscaped and trim and just so lush. The resort itself was, well a resort? I was expecting wooden platforms with tents and what I got was air conditioned rooms with a pool and hot tub! Pete Mooney met us at the resort and had showed up a day before. Pete was great with his stories of his world wide herping adventures. The Dinning area was open air with a fantastic buffet served three times per day and fresh fruit available most of the time. We got our keys and went to our rooms to drop off our bags. The room was big with a king size bed, a sitting/dinning area, a closet and a bathroom with walk in shower (we used the shower a lot!). The room was a bit stuffy from the humidity so we turned on the A/C and went to lunch. As we left the room Stacy saw the first animal of the day, a pretty metallic green hummingbird was feeding on some of the flowers. A few more steps and I saw a line of Leaf Cutter ants doing their work and carrying large chucks of leaves from a nearby tree. The staff at the resort must have thought me to be insane, I just arrived and I was already taken pictures of birds and ants! We walked a few more steps and I heard a rustling coming from a Hibiscus hedge. I looked in to see a beautiful adult Male Black Spinney Tailed Iguana looking back at me. He stopped and just let me take his picture a couple of times and went on his way. I was amazed! I had been hear for less then twenty minutes and already seen three different animals in their habitat, I really had made a good choice of trips.
We ate lunch at the dinning area, each meal was a big affair with at least three meats, pasta, salads and every thing you could want. While eating brown Basilisks were everywhere. A couple beautiful fully crested males were running around and showing their stuff to the ample supply of females. Birds and butterflies were all over the place and the we were completely surrounded by rain forest on three sides. We finished up lunch went back to the rooms to clean up, take a shower and shortly there after Jim was ready to go.
As we started to do a small walk around the property one of the staff members came up to Jim and in half English and half Spanish told Jim that he just found a snake. He told Jim it was a Terciopele Jim knew this to mean a Fer De Lance. We ran to where the local said he had seen the snake and sure enough it was there. A baby only twelve inches loch sitting right in the rocks. I would soon find out that these snakes were very common in this area and would stay in the same area for days at a time. Jim let me hook the snake and place it into a container so we could remove it from the property. We all took pictures and went on out first walk. It started to rain shortly after we started and that became the norm about that time of day. Just walking around the property we were able to find, millipedes, Whip Scorpions, Poison Dart Fronts and more Black Tailed Iguanas and Brown Basilisks then we could count.
The Resort had Sky Walks going through the tops of the canopies (cable hung bridges from gorge to gorge.) and a Cable Sky ride that sent you zip lining for a half a mile through the rain forest. I can not express in words how beautiful this place is. The Carara National Park was close by and Stacy and I took a morning walk through it. Just in that park alone we were able to see Monkey’s more Fer De Lances, some Scarlet Macaws, Whip Tailed Lizards, Tree Frogs and a bunch of other things. The trail on the property you could find all sort of wild life also. We Saw more birds then I could name, including Toucans, and parrots of all kinds, There were massive insects (one Walking  Stick was 7” long) and beautiful butterflies, Frogs of all kinds, from the Dart Frogs to Giant Marine Toads, to the tiny Branson’s Litter frog. Geckos of several species were abundant.
At night we would do a lot of road cruising. This I must say is not my favorite part of herping, but it is the most productive. We would come across as many as 15 snakes in a few hours of road cruising, some DOR and some just trying to cross.
My hope was to find a live Boa Constrictor on this trip, but we only found several DOR ones. We also came across several DOR Rainbow Boas as well. Road cruising produced one of the most beautiful snakes of the trip, the snail eating Sibon had great color and was beautiful, and there was a bunch of blunt headed vine snakes and Northern Cat Eyed Snakes. On one of the walks, Stacy had located a beautiful Brown Vine snake that sent Jim running like a 10 year old boy after it. I have to say Jim’s skill in catching and his knowledge of the animals makes him a great guide for this trip.
I would recommend this trip to anyone looking for a nice get away, I hope to return to the trip very soon and take another trip through that beautiful jungle.
Since this first trip I have taken a second trip with Jim and Plan on going again this fall with him. The second trip was even more productive then the first and I have fallen in love with the country. The Wilderness the people the entire event is something that I look forward to each year now.
Jim Kaveney With Hiss n Things Just emailed me to let me know that the trip in June of 05 was a great one in which they located 8 live Boa Constrictor!! I guess I must return again until I find one myself!
Don't try this at home, Eric was great but not quite right in the head LOL. Yes that is one of our group member feeding a 15 foot American Croc! Not reccomended!

 

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