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. 

Nothing has really changed or happened to make me feel this way. It’s just the cumulative effect of a lot of factors that have been in place the whole time. Specifically:

• The bugs. Oh my word, if I could change one thing about this summer, it would be the &$(@#!! bugs. Mosquitos, no see-ums, ants, and the occasional mystery biting bug have been competing for my attention and wrath every single day we’ve been here. We cannot escape them, as we are outside even when we’re in the house. Mosquito nets help, but I can’t realistically keep myself and both children sequestered under them all day. Insect repellents, both natural and nuclear, help somewhat, but nothing stops the ants, and their bites hurt the worst. Last night I tried to count my bites. I stopped at 40, because I couldn’t decide if I should only count the ones that still itch (40), or if I should include the older ones that aren’t actively torturing me anymore. I am taking a mega B vitamin supplement, using repellent religiously, trying a variety of natural remedies to deal with the itching, and trying not to scratch the bites into open sores. Graham is also pretty afflicted, and there is no keeping him from mad scratching. To keep him healthy, I sneakily apply salves and antibiotic creams to his bites after he falls asleep at night. Dean and Zach are faring better, though they are by no means free from itch. 
• Lack of privacy. Our open living room means that other guests, the owners, and their employees can all look right in as they pass on the nearby path. Also, there’s no sound privacy, so our children’s frequent wails are very audible to everyone around. I find myself thinking that everyone is a one-kilometer radius must think I’m a terrible mother. I have to be fully dressed to get up for some water at night. I worry that we’re infringing on other people’s vacations. No one is trying to spy or eavesdrop on us, but I can’t help being self-conscious about how exposed we are. The property as a whole feels very private from the rest of the world, but I am pretty ready for enclosed walls. Blessed, blessed doors and walls.
• Loneliness. I miss my friends and family so, so much. That means you. 
• Insane children. The kids are on top of each other all day long, and are much harder to entertain here. I miss the structure of school, having a plethora of toys, having play dates, and BABYSITTING. Oh boy do I miss having a little childcare in my life. 
• Unsafe children. It’s hard to babyproof a home that your one-year-old can literally climb out of. Dean is so adventurous. I miss being able to lock up a cabinet, outlet covers, etc. 
• Street harassment. I had read about catcalling on the streets here, but I hadn’t really experienced it, because apparently the perverts leave you alone when you have a husband or child with you. As I’ve started making some more solo trips to town, I’ve had some nasty encounters/comments that I was simply not prepared for. 
• The smallness of my world here. It’s a small town, not much to do (at least that is kid friendly), and getting to other places is difficult/expensive. I am unused to feeling stuck, and I think of my regular travel radius in Texas with awe and envy. 

We talked about relocating for the last month. It’s just not practical. We may be able to travel somewhere else for the last 10 days or so, and I am crossing my fingers for that. I’d like to see the Monteverde area. We are also going to rent a car for a couple more weekends and do some mini-trips around this coast. 

All that said, I am feeling better today. I don’t want to give the impression that this summer has been a disaster, and I feel whiney complaining about this amazing trip. The things I was bracing myself for — no car, few consumer goods/groceries available, heat, etc. — I have dealt with well. The things I’ve listed above I either didn’t anticipate or didn’t realize would affect me so much. I am trying to focus as much as possible on the things I do like. So as not to be make this post a total downer, allow me to list a few:

• The surplus of beauty. Costa Rica’s every plant, butterfly, vista, and birdsong are all trying to out-gorgeous each other. We are the lucky beneficiaries of that competition. I see dozens of beautiful things every day, from hummingbirds to ocean. I’ve stopped remarking on it because I sound so redundant. “Oh, look how gorgeous!” I mean, come on, tell us something we don’t know, Elizabeth! 
• Puerto Viejo is charming, it really is. This is a cool area of the world. I may not want to come here for three months again, but I am happy to have gotten to know it. 
• Perspective. My sufferings (and yes, that is tongue-in-cheek) here make me realize how amazingly luxurious our life in Texas is. More than that, getting to know how people live here makes me realize how lucky Americans are. The minimum wage in Costa Rica is $2/hour, and while housing is pretty cheap, food and various goods are really not. People here not only have less in the way of material goods, but also less education (schools in the area being, according to everyone we’ve talked to, pretty bad and sometimes inaccessible) and fewer job opportunities beyond the service sector. Being in a different world is enlightening, even if it’s hard.

I don’t regret that we’re here. But it’s not paradise. It’s hard, fun, interesting, different, expanding, exhausting, educational… And itchy. 

Local Phone

“Who would call us?” we thought. “We don’t need no stinkin’ local phone!” This has turned out to be a big mistake. We live on a gated property, and the fact we don’t have a phone means no one can stop by without pre-arranging an exact time to meet them at the gate. This has caused problems with the taxi, the Tofu Man, our rental car, and our new friends. We would never attempt another long-ish stay overseas without a phone.

Washer/Dryer

We thought we would “go simple” and wash our own clothes. This would be fine except when it takes more than 48 hours for them to dry. If you’ve never let clothes stay damp for two straight days, let me tell you what they smell like: a cross between a wet dog and a locker room. Mmmm, fresh! Our landlords have a washer and dryer that they charge us around $10 per load for. Hey, at least we’re not buying gasoline!

An Oven

We knew when we came down here that we would only have a two-burner gas range and no oven. No big deal, right? When do we use an oven, anyway? We really miss being able to roast/bake/broil/warm whatever. There are those days when all you want for your life is to cook a frozen pizza. We have been in several homes here with an oven, and we get jealous.

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.

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.

I’m enjoying this in certain small ways. I love that on the property here Graham can be out of my sight and I feel comfortable that he’s safe as long as I know where he is. He’s not a huge risk taker, so he always comes back into my line off vision shortly. Even Dean can wander way more freely here than at home. The couple of times we’ve had a ride into town with the kids, there was no question that we’d bring the carseats. We did have them strapped in on the way from San Jose — my heart would never have been able to take the lane changes otherwise! — but they’re currently gathering dust upstairs.

Certain things are different here that make these safety things palatable. The drives have been short and slow. It’s a TINY town (I see the same people all the time) and people know each other and their kids. Cars are very accustomed to sharing the road with bikes and pedestrians and are generally very courteous. But it definitely puts an interesting perspective on things. I spent hours researching car seats when it was time to switch Graham into something bigger. I wouldn’t dream of leaving Dean unsupervised in our front yard in Texas. Yet maybe when we get back I’ll a slightly less paranoid mama? Who knows…

In an interesting twist, apparently Americans are much more cavalier about babysitters than the Ticos. I thought it would be easy to find some part-time babysitting here, but the idea was met with… well, not horror by our hostess, but no recommendations either. “I don’t know who I could trust — I mean, it’s your children!” were her exact words, if I recall correctly. Pretty different from the “Hey, that kid down the street looks old enough to dial 9-1-1,” approach to hiring sitters that a lot of Americans have. (For the record, our sitters in TX have all come from trusted recommendations or with references, but I haven’t been running their prints or anything.)  The only lead on a babysitter I’ve been able to get down here was from a woman who looked suspiciously like a “lady of the evening” who solicited me as I biked through town with Dean one day. Hmmm.

A kilo is the minimum amount required for home delivery, so we went for it. It’s harder to get ethical meat here, so we would, ideally, like to be eating more fish and tofu anyway. The tofu dude is a character. He seems like he might be perpetually… shall we say, in an altered state of consciousness? And yet, he has a thriving soy enterprise, complete with business card! (The card, btw, has been adapted. Apparently he used to be a musician, but his credentials have been Sharpied out and replaced with the word “TOFU.”)

Anyhoo, we got our delivery yesterday and tonight Zach cooked some up in a delicious thai green curry. It was awesome! I really love how fresh so much our produce has been here, and now that we’re getting these homemade tofu deliveries I think we’re set! Oh, and did I mention that the lecheria, where we get the homemade ice cream, also sells organic dairy products like milk and butter? That place is quickly becoming our home away from home.

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!

On the way home, my bike’s chain popped off the gears. I pulled it over to the side of the road and started trying to slip it back on. That’s when Roberto arrived on the scene!

Ticos are a friendly and helpful people, and I suppose I pretty much screamed “gringa in distress.” He immediately took charge of the repair, and I got to have my first full conversation in my (pathetic) Spanish. He succeeded in fixing the bike and then invited me to go to the discotech with him. I told him I was married with two children. He reacted with surprise… and then I think he might have suggested that I could still go out with him despite being married… I decided not to try and understand that part.

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The jungle has its ups and downs. I continue to feel like a wilty flower from 11-3 every day. Texas has nothing on this place for humidity. The first thing Graham said this morning was, “I don’t want to stay here!!!!” Dean is somewhat easier to please, but he’s also having a lot of meltdowns. I am covered in bug bites and have been warned to treat even a paper cut with neosporin, etc., so that we don’t get flesh eating bacterial infections, YIKES.

On the other hand, it’s beautiful. The flora is incredible. It feels like plants rule this place and we just try to stay out of their way. There are tons of hummingbirds and butterflies and other pretty creatures. And every day we’re seeing or doing something new. Today is Zach’s 33rd birthday; we shall celebrate with going out for homemade ice cream, dinner at the Loco Natural Restaurant, and perhaps some family bike riding.

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One more note:  This morning I had my first encounter with a scary jungle creature. I unknowingly squished a scorpion under my cutting board when I was making breakfast. EW.