Snake Hunting

First a little information on the snake of interest:

"Terciopelos are often called the most feared animal in Latin America. They are in the viper family and are fairly excitable as snakes go, stories of them attacking rather than retreating are not uncommon. They are rather large too, the females on this coast average 66 inches (over a metre and a half), maximum recorded length is 97 inches. They have long hinged fangs which lie against the roof of the mouth. When they bite the fangs rotate forward into a stabbing position and their hypodermic needle fineness directs venom deep into the tissue. The venom is full of tissue destroying chemicals and digestive enzymes: when a human is bitten up to a third of the blood supply leaves the system and floods extremities or the intestines, the resulting drop in pressure stops the heart. In non fatal bites there is often permanent damage to the kidneys or lungs and to the site of the bite. "

      

"This infamous viper's large size, long fangs, and high venom production and toxicity are paired with an active and edgy disposition, making it one of the most dangerous creatures one can encounter in Costa Rica. It is the most dangerous snake in Central America and causes the most snakebite-related deaths among humans in Costa Rica. Venom from this species contains an anticoagulant and causes hemorrhaging.  "

So now you may be wondering why myself, four men from Sweden and our Tico friend Pincho would spend hours scouring the palm plantations in the dark looking for them.  Well, the answer is, what else is there to do on Tuesday night?  

We turned off the road into the mysterious lines of date palms slowing our speed.  It was as if we were a search and rescue crew scanning the fields and the road with back and forth motions of flash lights.  We saw glowing eyes and raced ahead, it was a large rodent staring back at us.  Next we drove through a spider web, yes a web large enough to cross the road.  Then we found it.  It was at the end of a dead end road.  It was amazing.  To be so near such a poisonous snake.  Its fangs are so long it actually bit through its own mouth and was bleeding.  The guys from Sweden were handling it, holding it behind the head.  I finally creeped out of the truck and inched closer, but not as close as them.

After letting it go we found a few other snakes.  One a vine snake crossing the road that I spotted and another tiny little snake which I forget the name to now.  At one point we backed into a tree turning around, that was kind of funny.  

     

After returning from the miles and miles of palm tree forests we went to the Las Vegas for a beer.  It had been a successful snake hunting evening.  Next these guys were off to Isla Violin (right across the mouth of the river from the beach house) to camp out for a few nights.  They ended up seeing plenty of snakes there too!

The moral of the story is, there's always something exciting to do in Sierpe!  Come down and visit! 

Here is their account of the story:  

"We ate pizza at 6 p.m. and were waiting for Pincho, the owner of Poorman's Paradise, to turn up since we had planned to have dinner with him. Pincho turned up after dinner but a quite charming girl called Chelsea turned up instead. She wanted to go with us when she heard that we were going to look for snakes in the plantation. Pincho drove the car and she sat beside him. I, Andreas and Rickard sat in the backseat. Fredrik, David and Max sat outside in the back of the car.

The first thing we did was to get stuck with the car in a mudpole. Fredrik jumped down and tried to push the car backwards. He didn't succeed. Luckily the car had 4 wheels drive but you had to switch it on at the front wheels outside the car. Fredrik switched over to 4-wheel drive and then we managed to back out from the mud.

The first thing we saw was couple of eyes glowing in the dark some distance in front of the car. Pincho stepped on the gas and in a few seconds we reached the place where the animal had been seen. It was an opossum. We saw glowing eyes a couple of times more and Pincho stepped on the gas both times. It was just a small kitten. Luckily I was sitting comfortable in the backseat since the guys outside had it quite ruff when Pincho stepped on the gas and the car drove at full speed on the bad road.

We drove on the small roads in the plantation while our headlamps searched the ground on both sides of the car. A couple of times someone at the back banked on the car roof and shouted snake. We found one smaller snake and one fer-de-lance. We also saw one dead snake which had been killed by a car. It was a boa. Max and Andreas, I think, went away when we took some photos of the fer-de-lance. They told us that they had seen a coati family up in a palm.

After our tour in the plantation we went directly to the nearby bar, dirty with rubber boots on. We sat and talked during some time. I ordered a Cuba Libre and got it on a can. I and Fredrik remained at the bar a little longer than David, Max, Rickard and Andreas. Chelsea, the American girl, asked us if we would like to follow her home together with some other guys when the bar closed. She wanted to play some kind of Nintendo game if I got it right. Some game where you sang and played a guitar. We followed her to her house but didn't go inside when the others went in. Her boyfriend was at home and I wonder what he thought when she came home with a bunch of guys.