What are we doing in Costa Rica?

On our last day in Monteverde, we hiked in the Children’s Eternal Rainforest. It’s protected land that children from all over the world have donated money to buy. The trails were lovely, and there was a cool learning house with games and puzzles for the kiddos to play with at the end.

Last Friday was Mother’s Day in Costa Rica. I didn’t think much about it at first, but after being wished “feliz dia de madre!” by a few Ticos, I was quite into enjoying my special day — I’m so easily influenced! 

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!

The good news is, we love Monteverde! There is a ton of fun stuff to do with the kids, the cool mountain air feels really good, and nothing is trying to eat us!

The bad news is, some food-borne parasite has been making a mosh pit in Elizabeth’s guts, so we’re house-bound until they move their party elsewhere.

With a midwife bat to help! The boys and I learned that and other interesting facts about bats this morning at the Monteverde Bat Jungle. We saw hundreds of bats eating, flying, drinking, and grooming on the tour, followed by a kids’ movie about bats. It was so much fun!

I’m sorry there’s been a post about poop at the top of the blog for a week! We’ve been busy! 

We’re now in Monteverde, a charming town perched high in the mountains. There are a few mosquitos, but nothing to write home (or blog) about. For that reason alone I would be happy to be here, but there’s also a fair amount of interesting sights for the whole family, as well as wonderful, cool, non-humid weather. Ah! 

We decided last week that we needed to get out of Puerto Viejo a week earlier than planned. The air was saturated with mosquitos. Graham’s bitten legs were beyond horrifying. We could. not. escape. That plus a desire to see more of this interesting country led to a flurry of last-minute plan making. Here’s a quick run-down of the past few days:
Friday: Book rental car. Start packing up entire house.
Saturday: Collect car, make hotel reservations for Alajuela (stopover on Sunday night) and Monteverde. Pack a lot more.
Sunday: Finish packing. Leave. Drive for 5+ hours. Spend night in Alajuela. Elizabeth comes down with food-poisoning-like illness. 
Monday: Zach, too, is afflicted. We load up on Immodium and drive to Monteverde. (Last hour is on a BUMPY road. Whoo hoo!).  Feeling better. 
Tuesday: Elizabeth comes down with mystery fever in the night, perhaps related to earlier woes. Spends day in bed feeling rotten. Zach wrangles children, secures rental house for the week, and locates an episode of Gilmore Girls on the TV for Elizabeth. Wins husband of the year award.
Wednesday: We move into cool, quirky tree house in Monteverde. Our nice landlady rents us the top, two-bedroom apartment and throws in a lower, one-room one for free for the kids to play in. Score! We settle in. Takes a long time to get internet access up and running, but this is finally achieved. 

Our plan is to stay here for a week and then spend our last 4-5 nights in the country in the Central Valley. After that, it’s home, sweet home. Nice as Monteverde is, we can’t wait for Texas.