Hudd Family Travelling Zoo: 22 Dec - the El Castillo serpentarium (aka EcoZoo)

We've made lots of trips into El Castillo from our little house. There is only one street so that even we can't get lost, no matter how hard we try. There is a little soda (restuarant) facing a small one-room church, a mini-market, a handful of homes, hotels comprising of cabinas, a serpentarium (also known as the Arenal EcoZoo), and a butterly conservatory.

We made the trek into the serpentarium to have a guided tour on Thursday morning. Our guide was a very cool rastafarian guy with dreads down to his waist - he's really smiley and attentive to all the kids. His name is Juan and he lives just next door to the serpentarium, which the boys thought was pretty cool.

Juan started by walking us all through the process of making anti-venom. Apparently, Costa Rica has the one anti-venom producing center in all of the americas (based in San Jose). They are able to produce anti-venom for all but 1 of the 22 venomous species of snakes in Costa Rica. He described how the venom is injected into a large animal (horse) through repeated sets of small injections until the blood has produced the antibodies to ight the venom. Then some blood is extracted and run through a centrifuge to separate the anti-venom before the horse is rewarded with a 2 month rest period. One horse is able to 'work' in this way for 3 years before it is set free to retire. (I have to say, I feel kinda sorry for the poor horses used in this process, couldn't they be rotated out after a year instead of 3?!)

We then visited the venomous snakes in captivity at the zoo - vipers and corals. I loved the eyelash vipers with their long eyelashes and the super brightly red-striped coral snakes. Juan pointed out the 4 ways to know a snake is venomous:

(1) eyes: pupils are slits (like a cat) not round like ours

(2) scales: scales on head are smaller than rest of body, non-venomous have larger head-scales

(3) nostrils: venomous snakes have 4 instead of 2 nostrils, with a gland in one set that senses heat, like infrared sensors

(4) shape of head: bigger head to accomodate venomous gland ducts, non-venomous have smaller sleeker shaped heads

The thought crossed our minds that if you were close enough to be able to clearly see the first 3 items, you may be a bit too late to save yourself!!!

So Costa Rica has 117 non-venomous and 22 venimous species of snakes altogether. The 117 non-venomous snakes use constriction or bites as a form of self-protection and feeding.

We left the highly toxic snakes to continue on and visit the slightly friendlier creatures. First, inspected a baby iguana who seemed non-plussed about being fondled and passed about - he had been born in captivity there.

Next, we all took turns holding a cartoon-like rainforest tree frog with blue sides and orange feet. He was so light that it was like holding a leaf. He pod-ended fingers were very sticky and he loved to climb up our fingers. When Sam cuddled the tree frog, it climbed under his chin and almost got squashed by a very, ticklish little boy. We had to hold his head up and pry out the poor frog's fingers ... the possiblity of the fragile little frog falling and getting stepped on in the confusion made us all very nervous!

The lovely little tree frog that looks like a toy

After we put the tree frog back on his leaf, we moved on to a rainbow boa. Juan said this was one of his favourites because when the sun landed on it, the scales turn pearlescent and reflect a rainbow of colors. But when we held him, it was shady and he was just brownish. Still, he was very docile and let al of us wrap him around our arms and necks, his little head turning this way and that to check us out at the same time.

After the rainbow boa, Juan placed an impossibly skinny spaghtteti snake onto Andy's finger. Coiled up, it looked like a big ring. Once warmed a bit by Andy's hand, the spaghetti snake came to life, stretching out to a meter or so in length. So beautiful, but perilously fragile looking. We all held one of the several spaghettis in the terrarium and they were my favourite. I was so jealous when Juan said he has one at home as a pet.

We walked on and saw various types of small to medium tortoises, a baby crocodile and more non-venomous snakes - including a huge pregnant python, with a lumpy chicken filled tummy.

Juan took us into a small butterfly conservatory and showed us some cocoons. Most were green, but one was metallic gold, very unusual. He held the 'head' of a green cocoon and showed how when he stroked the cocoon it wiggled and moved about - that was so fascinating, we had all thought that the caterpillar/butterfly in the cocoon would be sleeping the whole time, like in a coma, so it was so strange to see the cocoon wiggling around like that!

One of the most beautiful butterflies in Central America, the Blue Morpho. The wings appear brown on one side and blue on the other - but there is atually no blue on the wings... just a set of pearlescent scales that reflect all colors but blue.

We finished off in the insects section - not my favourite, I'm just proud I can manage to be there and not squeal like a three year old the whole time! Juan opened all the little enclosures so we could better inspect the scorpion spider and various types of tarantulas. Even he doesn't seem to love holding any of these, but picked a furry tarantula for us to take a closer look. When offered a cuddle, interestingly no one accepted.

We also enjoyed just hanging out at the serpentarium with Juan, the boys hanging on the tree swing or playing with Peluche the dog. The balcony there had an amazing view over lake Arenal and some of the most delicious 'tipical' food. My favourite dinner was the serpentarium's specialty, Casado - a dish of rice, black beans, fried plantain, meat and salad.