What are we doing in Costa Rica?

Shake the toilet paper role before tearing off your squares. 

This message brought to you after a near-miss with a VERY intimidating ant. 

We’re back to sweating and itching in our jungle home after a whirlwind trip through the center of the country! I’m happy to report that there were no more brushes with death, though we wildly underestimated how long the driving would be on each leg of the trip, so Graham and Dean would probably argue that they were perilously close to being bored to death quite a lot.





We arrived at the Arenal Lodge in the late afternoon on Saturday, played on the playground, introduced Graham to foosball, and had a delicious dinner. On Sunday we were able to upgrade to one of their “chalet” rooms — it was incredible! The chalets are up on a hill with a gorgeous view of the volcano and surrounding valley and lake. We took a nature walk, played in the butterfly garden, and spent some time in the nearby town of La Fortuna. A pizza for dinner in our room, Star Wars Episode 3, and an awe-inspiring thunderstorm completed our day.









We didn’t see any lava (too cloudy at night), but the volcano did make some impressive sounds. We were suitably impressed.


On Monday morning, we set out for Santa Cruz, a little town in the hills between San Jose and the Atlantic coast. “Surely,” we said to each other, “driving through San Jose would be faster!” Oh, to be so naive and starry-eyed again! Six hours of driving, and much doubt in my heart that we would ever reach our destination, brought us to the Guayabo Lodge, a remote little jewel of a bed and breakfast.


Its beauty could not be adequately captured by photographs, but here are a few anyway.

The boys especially enjoyed making friends with the resident baby animals, and Graham played his first game of ping pong against an eight-year-old Dutch girl.






Click below for more photos.

Arenal & Guayabo Lodge

Some photos from the past couple of weeks, as well as a few notes on jungle living that have been rattling around in my brain. I’ve been way too lazy about uploads! You can view more photos here.

Horses wander freely about the town.

Dogs do too!

Our closest beach, Playa Negra, in the late afternoon. The black sand is super fine and gets into everything.

Graham is very dramatic in his refusal to love the beach.

Big, crazy spider in our sink one morning. It hopped at me when I tried to scoop in into a glass. YIKES!

Zach preparing one of the fish he caught. Such a provider!

Finally got close enough to one of the dart frogs to take its picture.

Dean bringing me flowers.

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Both boys are expanding their vocabularies in Costa Rica. Dean is saying dog, cat, thank you, bye, mama, and dada. He also pants like a dog whenever he sees any four-legged creature, and he has started waving. Graham has started saying “chillax.” That’s chill + relax for all you oldsters . As in, “Daddy, it’s time to go to bed and chillax!”

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How humid is it here? Dishes don’t dry in the draining rack. Some of our clothes are mildewing. Books and paper are just slightly damp at all times. Our bathroom is like a swamp.

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The big, exciting news this week is that we are making friends! Graham had his first play date yesterday with an awesome little boy and it was a big success. His parents own the coffee shop in town — could there be a better family to befriend?! They played with rocks and cars, chased each other around the shop, and got ice cream cones. We have some more potential friend irons in the fire as well.

The more time passes since I last wrote, the harder it is to write anything at all, because all my observations are competing for space. This is going to be a hodge podge assortment of ideas, hopefully enough to get me out of “blog debt.”

Simpler, But Not Easier

Life here is simpler than in the States, but simple things are hard. There is less of everything except untamed wilderness: fewer people, less traffic, less media barrage, less stuff to buy, fewer choices. If you had a million dollars down here, nobody would know it because there’s nothing to buy except food, sundries, and what few garments are suitable for sweating it out in the jungle. Imagine, if you will, no Best Buy, no Home Depot, no PetCo, no Old Navy, no Barnes & Noble, no Bed Bath & Beyond. And lo and behold, your life runs perfectly well without them. Living here is uncomplicated, and generally low-stress. However, basic things take a lot of energy. Taking care of the kids here is a lot harder, because it takes both parents to get them out of the house. We don’t have a child care option yet, and no parenting staples like playgrounds and children’s museums. Stocking the refrigerator is a challenge, since we can only carry the equivalent of a single grocery bag in the bicycle basket. We go the various small grocery suppliers almost daily. By the time I have biked home with a full basket, I just want to drink a cold beer and go to sleep!

Bug Update

We’re adapting. Graham’s legs have downgraded from “Fangoria” to “merely bad.” To paraphrase Forrest Gump’s momma, the jungle is like a box of chocolates… We are constantly astonished by the variety and unpredictability of our insect situation. Case in point: two nights ago at dusk the entire house was enveloped in a swarm of moth-like creatures with slender black wings. We hid out for a while under our mosquito nets. It felt like an episode of “Tales from the Crypt.” Within about an hour, they were gone, and the spider camped out above our staircase was exhausted. We’re learning to live side-by-side with our six-legged friends. They are a fact of life here. On the other hand, when one of them flew straight into my right ear at dinner, all the way to my eardrum, I almost lost my mind.

Man’s Place in Nature

The first thing you think when you see this country is “OMG, it’s so beautiful.” After a few days, this evolves to “I am a stranger here, and Nature wants to eat me.” Now that we’re four weeks in, I can feel another transition. “Holy crap, I am an animal too! I really do belong here; growing up in a manmade world made me forget how.” I am becoming attuned to the natural world in subtle ways. For example, we had two straight days of rain this week. This morning, I knew the rain was finished because the cicadas were making a racket, which they never do while it’s wet. We don’t have any clocks. Honestly, we tell the time by looking at the sky.

Happy Father’s Day! 

My parents arrived in the jungle two days ago and are surviving — nay, thriving — amongst the bugs and humidity. I am very impressed! My mom’s favorite plants, bromeliads, thrive here, and they are having some enviable wildlife sightings. 

To celebrate Father’s Day, we took a family trip to the Finca la Isla Botanical Garden. It’s right next store to us, and is a real treasure for the neighborhood. We’ll be going again many times. 

Photos from the visit:

At the end of the visit, we sampled bananas, star fruits, chocolate, and juice, all of which were made on site. It was an awesome adventure!

A slideshow of photos from around our house. It is so beautiful. 

And here’s Dean looking out the window at the cat. A moment later, he started saying, “ki-ca!”

I just have to get this off my chest. What you don’t see in our beautiful photos of “paradise” is that we are antagonized, harassed, molested, plagued by insects. Elizabeth said before that she thinks the plants rule the jungle. I think the insects rule the jungle, and they use the plants for housing and the human beings for convenient snacks. I have been reduced to a bag of blood and other precious fluids for bugs to enjoy.

In the nine months we spent researching Costa Rica and preparing for the trip, nothing made mention of the fact that insect repellent is not much more than a feeble joke to the local mosquitoes. Nobody told me my wife and four-year-old son were going to look like victims of the pox, and both want to rip their skins off. Weirdly, I am almost unaffected. I guess I don’t taste good, and Dean seems to have some of my tolerance. But I would rather they would come for me than my Elizabeth and my Graham. Especially Graham, who has around three-score welts on his arms and legs and scratches them until they become weeping sores. I want this to be a fun summer for him. I certainly didn’t set all this up to subject my little boy to an exotic form of torture.

It’s not all bad news. The situation seems to be improving, so I think we’re all developing a better resistance. We learned that we can secure Graham’s mosquito net to his bed with clothespins so he doesn’t kick it off during the night. Some days are much better than others. We’ll get mosquitoes one day, and gnats the next. Always ants, but at least they’re only after our provisions, not us. The jungle doesn’t need a weather forecast, it needs a bug forecast.

I hope I’m not being too negative. There are plenty of things to love about our setting, this just doesn’t happen to be one of them. This is going to go on the record as one of the prices to pay for the experiences we’re enjoying.

Fun sighting at the playground today! These purple grasshoppers have vermilion wings! I could have kicked myself for not having my camera. You’ll have to settle for this one:

Follow it up with homemade ice cream from the lecheria and you have yourself one heck of an outing.

Poison dart frog, seen hopping through the jungle this morning.

Today was a good day. We hitched a ride into town with our hostess Pamela and bought produce and a chicken at the farmer’s market, then visited the grocery store. Being able to purchase more than just a bike basket’s worth of groceries was very liberating. We must guard against getting too pampered. Later, Zach took Dean into town on my bike and its chain broke once and for all, but he was able to trade it out for a fresh one that appears to be in better shape (and it’s still pink!). Graham still says he doesn’t like Costa Rica, but he was in a good mood almost all day, and that made things much easier.

Dean is getting really communicative. He has added two words to his vocabulary since we got here (ball and Dada), and he points things out to me all day long, providing commentary that is both witty and insightful. He is managing to perform all sorts of daredevil stunts in our jungle home, and he cracks himself up on a regular basis. Our boys are such charming little people.

Both boys (and their parents) got a couple of real thrills today. We had two visitors from nature make their way into the house today. First, I found this little fella under our draining rack!

What lures a crab into a jungle house?! I should mention that we are across a street and through about 5 minutes of jungle roads from the beach — very mysterious! However, finding a crab in the sink was about the most exciting thing Graham has ever experienced. We trapped him in our bug jar and set him free in the jungle. It was awesome.

And if that wasn’t thrilling enough, this evening we found the biggest frog/toad I’ve ever seen under a stool in our living room! He hopped into our bedroom, where he was kind enough to stand still (aka, be terrified into immobility) for some photos. It took some doing to get him out, but I finally managed to coax him with our dustpan. Off he hopped into the safety of the foliage. The mystery here is how he got in in the first place…

Thus concludes another day at Casa Jungla Thomas. I leave you with a little slideshow. Hasta pronto!