And, after booking my non-refundable ticket, I read that scorpion bed invasions are normal in Costa Rica!!! Cripes.

I love getting down'n'dirty with the best of 'em, but I have a real aversion to things that go bite in the night (whenm they're not my husband).

Will we encounter these vile specimens even at the best hotels? Are they everywhere in the country or do they tend to be found in one type of area over another?

HELP!!!

Dear MonaManuel,
Yes, you may encounter spiders even in the best hotels. Like I always tell people who stay with us: "remember, you are staying in the animals' house, not the other way around..." Having said that, I have been living in Costa Rica, for 3 years, in the country side, basically in the middle of the jungle, and I was never bit by any animal, except by ants while hiking. I have never discovered a scorpion in my bed, or spiders. I have seen them, but they never snuck into unwanted places. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it ;-), and I wouldn't think about not coming to Costa Rica because of it!
Feel free to write me directly for any more information.
Pura Vida,
Neta Talmor

I just got back from Costa Rica. I woke up at 1:00 a.m. at our place in Manuel Antonio Estates and felt something crawling on my arm. I brushed it, and it stung me. It was a scorpion.

It did hurt really badly, and I had a lot of trouble getting back to sleep after that. I was pretty freaked out by it.

However, I did instantly put benadryl on it, and I took a benadryl pill. All swelling, redness, and pain were gone when I awoke.

My advice: 1-seek a place that is well-sealed (ours wasn't) 2-keep a little flashlight handy for checking any dark place where you are picking up your clothes---and under the bed 3-do check your bed, your shoes, etc. for scorpions before touching them 4-keep the covers tucked 5-take benadryl cream and pills with you

We also have scorpions where we live in Texas---have lived here 10 years. But I've never been bitten here. A very few have invaded our home, but our home is much better sealed than the place we stayed---and most invasions happened when we were re-tiling.

Catmomma... uhmm, where were you staying? Dare I ask? I worry enough about snakes, I really don't want to think aqbout spiders and scorpions, eek!

I was staying at the Jungle Cabin in Manuel Antonio Estates. It had AC, jacuzzi tub, fridg, stove, and many of the other conveniences of modern life---which made it seem like it wasn't camping or anything.

But we saw a termite line going up the side of the house. My husband found a termite nest in one of the bathroom doors. A piece of floorboard was missing on the floor. I'm sure there were a few other cracks we didn't notice too. That's how the creepy crawlies got in.

AHHH.. A place where it doesn't ever get cold enough to kill these pesties. We had the suite at the Hotel Montana in Monteverde, older part of the property but nice. 1st night I felt something run across my hand as soon as the lights went out but was too tired to do anything about it. The next morning...I checked! The mattress (with rounded corners) was placed in a rectangular box frame. The corners all had spiders! We took the mattress out and cleaned out the nests. No problems after that. It's worth the adventure. The benedryl is a must to bring along. I can put up with alot but not the cockroaches in Florida.
Pura Vida

Yikes-was that the Capullo suite at Montana Monteverde? We stayed there too on Mar. 8th and 9th. It seemed really nice---but we didn't notice the spiders. We were only there two nights---and barely in the suite. Did I just pick every bug house in Costa Rica or what?

Catmomma,
What are chiggers. I see in another post you say you got infestded with chiggers and could not treat. Is this something I should have preparation on hand for?
Thanks, Sarah

Out of any creepy crawly/critter I too hate spiders. We did the flash light check every night before bed (we were in Drake Bay - more remote & had lights on timers in our cabina, but you don't want to turn those on thus attracting bugs, so a flash light is used). One night there was a spider on the wall beside the bed, well there was no way I could sleep knowing that it was beside us so of course I did the shoe slap on the wall & said bye bye. It was fairly big & left a gross mess on the wall, as you can imagine. Well I couldn't be bothered to deal with it till morning. What was frightening was come morning, the wall was COMPLETELY clean, no sign anywhere of the "mess". So apparently something else had a feast! Better the wall then me though! The people in the cabina beside us had a scorpion, luckily we never saw one. Just a giant cockroach on our shower curtain & some big grass hopper thing on our shower rod. Little lizards were also in our cabina, but I like them!

If you don't mind pesticides, I've heard it's a good idea to spray your room with something like Raid before you go to dinner. When you come back a few hours later, a lot of the bugs should be dead. Not sure about scorpions, though -- do they react to Raid?
I've been to CR twice and haven't had any bad experiences with bugs. There was a huge frog in our closet once, and another time a gigantic grasshopper landed in the middle of my dinner plate.

Catmomma,

Yes it was the Capullo Suite at Hotel Montanya! Wasn't the view fantastic! Did you hike the grounds on the other side of the pond? We watched leaf cutter ants for about a half hour. The mounds were huge! In 14days in Costa Rica & Panama we never encountered any scorpions. (Glad I didn't think about it before we went)

I have responses to Jbella, seh2397, and marigold

Jbella-

Yikes! I'm glad I didn't notice the spiders in our suite there.

I couldn't believe I had that room and that view for that price. For others reading this post, you can see the mountains and the Gulf of Nicoya from the balcony of the suite. It was incredible.

No, we didn't do the nature trail. We started late one day, and it started getting dark. So we turned back. Then we ran out of time the next day b/c we only had a half day. I'm sorry we missed it.

To seh2397-
I thought I had explained the chigger thing---but I don't see it here. We have them in Texas too. They are tiny little bugs that burrow under your skin. They look a lot like mosquito bites and itch. I usually realize that they aren't mosquito bites when they don't respond to benadryl. After a day or two, you may notice a little dot of yellow crust on the "bite"---it looks a bit like a little yellow crystal. That's the chigger. You can put chigger ex on it. I prefer to put clear nail polish on the area. It suffocates the chigger and makes it leave your skin. I think it also eventually goes away on it's own much slower, but I'm not certain.

I had like maybe 8 chigger "bites." I think I got them from walking in tall grass. You can try to avoid them by avoiding walking in grass or sitting on grass. Also, I think the Lonely Planet guide says something about putting sulfur powder in your socks to ward them off.

To marigold-

No I don't think scorpions do respond to Raid. We actually have those here in the Texas Hill Country too. We've had our house treated for them before. If I remember correctly, the treatment was more like a sealing the house than poisoning the scorpions.

At the place in Costa Rica where I was bit, there was a little piece of missing floor-board, a termite nest, and a line of ants going into the place. I'm guessing the more upscale places are better maintained and better sealed than that.