When I signed up for a night-time walk in the Primavera Forest, I knew I would encounter the unexpected and that’s exactly what happened.
A few times every year, the Bosque la Primavera rangers hold a combination campout, night hike and bird-watching session and they really go all out to make it a success. The event started off on Saturday, June 23, 6 p.m. with a Powerpoint show by entomologist Dr. Miguel Vásquez of the public Universidad de Guadalajara (UdG). It seems that each hike focuses on a different subject.
And this time it was insects. The previous one, I understand, was all about bats. Each time, the organizers, Ezequiel García and Maricruz Carrillo, talk some kind of an expert into setting the theme, participating in the hike and even camping out under the stars.
Thirty-three people watched Dr. Vásquez’s slides and they represented all ages and walks of life. I had somehow imagined I would see mainly kids at this event, but children were in the minority. Also surprising to me was the great interest shown by everyone in the speaker’s subject. He was peppered with questions during the slide show and right on into the night.
Next came a getting-to-know-one-another session which was a great ice-breaker. García urged all the participants to find out about their fellow hikers “just as much as the creatures we will see in the woods.” And so they did, making this particular event an ideal way for the shy to make new friends.
At 8 p.m. we began hiking through a deep, narrow arroyo and up into the pine and oak forest. Very frequently we stopped either to look at creatures found along the way or to learn something about the forest. Did you know there are 11 kinds of oak trees in the Bosque?Now I had somehow imagined we would see some of the animals that roam the forest at night like foxes, possums, lynxes and cacomixtles (ringtails, in English), 
but that was not the case, as these animals can detect 33 night hikers a long distance away, no matter how quiet we tried to be. However, we did find and see plenty of life in the dark. Every few minutes, our guides or one of the hikers would spot frogs, tarantulas, June bugs, dung beetles and plenty of scorpions, just to name a few of the creatures. I finally discovered why a June bug in your house seems to go crazy, flying every which way.
“They use the moon as their guide,” explained our expert, “and any other kind of light confuses them.”
On this hike I discovered that there are two different bugs I would have identified as fireflies. One of them blinks and is called luciérnaga in Spanish while the other, whose light is always “on” is a cocuyo or Click Beetle in English. Said Dr. Vásquez: “This little guy is a member of the Elateridae family. If I place it on my hand upside down, like so, it will snap, suddenly propelling itself up into the air.”
We walked through an area thick with obsidian and came across an anthill surrounded by thousands of small bits of the black glass, each about half a centimeter in diameter. For years I have proposed the idea that obsidian and other hard rock can be broken down to this size by the ants, but most people pooh-poohed the idea, claiming the ants simply select pebbles of the same size to remove from their underground home. Now I could finally get the facts from a real expert.
“You are right,” confirmed Dr. Vásquez. “These ants are called Pogonomyrmex barbatus (Red Harvester Ants) and their mandibles are so powerful they can break obsidian into these bite-size pieces. Some scientists actually ‘feed’ certain kinds of rock to these ants so they (the scientists) can easily find the tiny fossils embedded in it.”
Well, that made my day – or night, I should say. By 11 p.m. we had hiked five kilometers and come to the famous Seated Lady fig tree next to Río Caliente. Here, the hike ended, due to impending rain and we were whisked back to the Agua Brava campsite by a fleet of Bosque pickups.
The next morning, the more energetic went on a bird-watching walk at 8 a.m., after which everyone gathered for the closing of the event. Here, Ezequiel García asked all kinds of questions about what we had learned, for example, what kind of rocks are you likely to find while walking in these woods? (Pumice, obsidian and “Tala Tuff”) Also, how many kinds of oak trees are in the Primavera? (If you don’t know, better go back and read this article more carefully!). Prizes for correct answers were lots and lots of cool T-shirts and posters.
We have learned that the next night hike will take place on Saturday, September 22 and Sunday, September 23. To participate you will have to visit the Bosque’s headquarters at Concentro (Av. Vallarta and Perifierico, tel: 3110-0917) to sign a release. Believe me, this small inconvenience is well worth the enjoyable experience that awaits you deep inside the dark forest.