In Puerto Viejo:

• Wildlife. Finding frogs in the shower, hearing monkeys howling in the jungle, never knowing what’s lurking in the kitchen sink, huge blue butterflies, dozens of hummingbirds, giant moths, and even molting grasshoppers
• The view of the ocean as we biked down the driveway 
• The ice cream shop (it really is that good)
• Being surrounded by the most beautiful plant life ever. The unreality of opening the shutters in the morning and realizing what incredible variety and abundance we have in store for the day
• Picking star fruits off our own tree
• The fresh fish vendor and our tofu man
• The Loco Natural dogs. Come home with us, Rumba!
• Lack of marketing — bags weren’t printed with the grocery store name, zero billboards, etc. 
• Horses walking down the beach like it’s no big deal
• The smell of ylang ylang trees
• Hey, we may have complained, but it was a pretty magical place. 

This morning we drove to the zoo in nearby Alajuela for a dose of Costa Rican wildlife.

This monkey is nursing her baby!
 

The zoo had a lot of interesting conservationist signs, including this one:

That’s Viagra in the turtle’s hands, in case you couldn’t tell.

The afternoon was rainy and sleepy. Everyone napped and I finished a good book (The Tenderness of Wolves). Tomorrow we pack; Monday we go HOME!

More photos in the slideshow.

Zoo Ave

First of all, here’s Charla the spider. She lived at the top of the stairs for our last two weeks or so. Graham was very fond of her.

Next up, this stick bug was the biggest we — or our hosts — had ever seen. It crawled across the living room floor one morning, up the door frame, and then hung out until we went to bed. In the morning it had vanished. 

And finally, here’s a visual of why we were desperate to leave early. Happily, he is healing.

In the morning I took the boys hiking in the Santa Elena Cloud Forrest Reserve while Zach worked. It was a perfect outing. They have a 1.4 km youth trail that was just long and challenging enough to be fun. Graham led the way with boundless enthusiasm; carrying Dean in the Ergo, I lagged behind just a bit. It was so indescribably beautiful. The pictures I’m posting don’t begin to do it justice. After the first trail, we took a break at the reception area, got something to drink, and the boys talked me into some stuffed monkeys. Then we hiked some more! 

In the afternoon we visited the used bookstore/cafe/laundromat in town, then picked up some Japanese food for dinner. I finished up the evening with a trashy novel and some chocolate-covered macadamias while a massive storm thundered all around us. It was a perfect day! 

Photos from the forrest. Our interwebs here are too slow for me to post individually, so here’s a slideshow. 

Belated Feliz Dia de Madre to all my beloved mamas out there!

This blog has focused disproportionately on bugs, or rather the bites the inflict, so I thought you might enjoy hearing about one of our more interesting insect encounters.

The kids were asleep one night last week, and Zach and I were enjoying an actual adult conversation. (Remember those? They’re nice!) As I was making an erudite observation, or perhaps drawing a breath before expounding upon my theories of the universe, I looked up and saw something.  

“What is that?!?” I squawked. 

We stared at it. From down on the sofa, it looked a little like a white bat. Or an alien. It was kind of gross. Maybe it was there to eat our faces? 

Because I’m scientifically minded, I climbed up on a chair to try for a closer look. Also, I needed blog fodder, so I wanted to take a picture. I know how much our friends and families love to be grossed out! 

We bandied about some theories as to just what the heck this thing was. Zach was sure pretty quickly that it was an insect, and for a few minutes we thought we had interrupted an intimate moment between two bugs. But why was the one we could see clearly so oogy? And why were they such different shapes? Was this an unholy union? And would one or both bugs seek bloody revenge for the interruptus? Only time — and a handy flashlight — would tell. 

We continued our examination. The creature had grasshopper-like legs, but its wings were floppy and wet looking, and its body was shrimp-like. Finally, Zach had a brilliant insight. “It’s shedding!” he cried. I ran to the computer and started googling to confirm. And indeed, that was what we were witnessing.  (You can witness it too!)

Unfortunately, all our pictures are from several feet away at an odd angle. But other people have gotten better shots. For example: here and here and here. This one is the most like what we saw. We continued to check in with our little friend for the next couple of hours. As we retired for the evening, he was eating his discarded skin. Bon appetit! 

Speaking of eating, here’s a bonus pic for the squeamish. The kids and I saw this at the botanical garden the other day.

Even spiders have to eat, you know!

On Monday I took the boys to the botanical garden, which was hazardously muddy, but a lot of fun.

Even the tree here have to decorate themselves so as to out-beautify.