Costa Rica Dog Lover

It is an amazing day today here in Puerto Viejo.  I biked into town to pick up some groceries and there were people out and about all over just enjoying the day.  There were more people in the ocean than I have seen in a long time.  Whatever was causing the rough ocean over the last week or so has gone away for now so everyone seems to be making up for lost time.  Even the plovers were out having a wonderful time finding snails to eat.

We also go to see two new birds this morning in our yard – a Blue headed Parrot and a Violaceous Trogon.   And – the Aracari that visited the other day came back and hung out in our papaya tree for a while.   What can I say – this is the life!

No mishaps on the way to or from the farmer’s market today.  I went in around 7:00 to get the best variety and it was buzzing – lots of people.  This is definitely the Saturday morning gathering place.  On my way back I stopped at the bank to get money from the ATM and was approached by an old man and his granddaughter who had some things to sell.  I bought a bag of corn for about 60 cents.  It was cooked and ready to eat.  Yummy! 

Biking along the ocean, I noticed that the ocean was unbelievable rough compared to the lake like surface we have experienced over the last couple of months.  I am not sure what is stirring it up but it is amazing!  My understanding is that this is pretty unusual for this time of year.  The ocean is coming up so high at high tide that it is nearly to the road.  The beach has eroded as well and there is a huge incline that wasn’t there a week ago.  It is gorgeous though.  I can just go and sit and watch the water and completely lose time. 

As I passed over one of the bridges on the way home, I saw a ringed Kingfisher and it was just gorgeous.    The picture isn’t that great – it is hard to take a photograph while balancing a bicycle and a bunch of vegetables and a chicken.  But it was pretty neat anyway!!

On Saturday I rode my bike to the farmer’s market as I normally do to pick up our weekly ration of whatever looks good.    As I wandered through the small vending area there was a lot that looked really good – chicken, pineapple, sapote, lettuce, and cucumbers to name a few. So I bought it all.  I chatted with a few people and then went to get on my bike to head back home.  Uh oh – way too much stuff for the little bitty basket I have on my bike.  I neglected to mention that before getting to the farmers market,  I stopped by Old Harbor – a small grocery store in town, and picked up a small bag of dog food. 

I thought I would be fine if I just put a few things in the basket, put the dog food on the back of the bike, and carried the b ag with all the rest of the food on my shoulder.  As I clumsily took off, I drove directly into two parked cars and almost tipped over.  I did a bit of rearranging and took off again, only to find that the handle bars on my bike had gone cockeyed and were at a right angle to the front tire.  I promptly went to the ground – along with all the food.  A very nice woman came over and helped me back up telling me not to be embarrassed because everyone takes a bike tumble at least once.  I fixed the handle bars and took off again, finally on my way.  I was going along just great and was riding over the first bridge when the dog food fell off of the back of the bike right in the middle of the road.  I hurried across the bridge, dropped the bike and all the food again, and ran back to pick up the dog food.  Rearranging for the final time, I took off and finally make it home with myself, the bike, and all the groceries intact.  Next Saturday, I will pace myself and will take a smaller bag that fits in the basket of the bike and will buy no more than will fit in the bag. 

Here are some pictures of the sapote and   some other type of fruit that I don’t know the name of.  As you can see, the sapote  is a very dull looking gourd-like thing but when you cut it open it has the  most beautiful orange fruit that is delicious!!!  The funny looking strawberry things have fruit inside that has a texture somewhat like an apple and it tastes somewhat like a cross between an apple and a pineapple – yummy!  So – though painful – the trip was well worth it. 

We have had an eventful week.  We have had some new and unique visitors to the yard – some delightful and some not.  Last night a Green Canopy Lizard must have dropped from one of the tops of the trees.  The lizard book we have said that it is very rare to actually see one because they stay in the canopy and don’t come down.  It hung out on some grass until it got dark and then headed on out – I assume back to the big tree.   We also have seen a couple of butterflies and moths that we have not seen before and they were gorgeous.  I am trying to find a butterfly book that will help me identify some of these specimens but in the meantime, it is fun to just watch them. 

We also have had a couple of creepy visitors – really big centipede and a spider. The centipede headed out on it’s own but we are going to help the spider find a new place to inhabit.  The web this spider is spinning is amazing but I haven’t been able to get a good photograph.

Just so you don’t think we only have exotic animals, I took a picture of a squirrel that has been hanging around.  We actually don’t see too many squirrels so this is a real treat!  

We were the visitors when we went to see Don Candido Morales today who is the medicinal plant doctor for the indigenous Bri Bri tribe who live primarily in the Talamanca mountains.   He is known for the successes he has had with a variety of serious diseases and cancers.  Don Candido lives just outside of Hone Creek and is about six miles from our house.  We had heard of him through friends who run the organization El Puente which helps the children and adults of the Bri Bri tribe with schooling and other critical needs.  We contacted Barry at El Puente and he set up an appointment so that Tom could have Don Candido look at his hands.  He damaged the nerves several months ago while refinishing cabinets in our house in Moscow.   They have been getting progressively worse and are to the point that he is miserable all the time as the palms itch, burn, crack and HURT continually. 

He spent about an hour with Tom using acupressure on his hands and feet to determine whether or not there were malfunctioning organs that were at the root of the problem but he determined that, other than the nerve damage, he was in good shape.  He did explain that the damage was so bad the it was beginning to move up his arms.  He prescribed plants from the jungle that Tom will need to boil and breath in the steam once a day and then soak his hands in the mixture.  He  also whipped up some ointment with other plants for him to put on his hands.  Once the ointment was applied his hands definitely felt better.  He will go back to see him on Tuesday and it could take up to a month for them to heal.  I will update Tom’s progress – hopefully this will work.

  This morning we sat in the outdoor living room and listened to parrots, toucan, montezuma oropendolas, and a cacophony of other sounds for about two hours.  It was amazing!  There was also a sloth in a tree in the middle of it all and she was just hanging out eating while all the birds were flying all around her.  The parrots just arrived yesterday and they are beautiful.  Mostly green but with red around the eyes and some blue feathers on the tail.  It looks like there are some little avocados that are ripe in some trees around us and they are here to eat them.  They were chasing the toucan and the toucan were chasing the oropendolas.  The tanagers, who show up every single morning, did not show up today.  I don’t blame them – too much competition :-)  

I also was greeted by two dogs in the neighborhood when I went out to look at the birds.  One of these little guys barked all night but both are so cute I guess I’ll forgive them. 

So – after a start to the day like this, I can’t wait to figure out what else is in store for us today!!!

  And then the internet went down.  To state the obvious – it is amazing how reliant I have become on the internet.  My computer has been acting up a lot recently and, while I backed up a few things, I didn’t back up all of my photographs that I have taken down here.  However, the good news is that we had purchased 16GB drives for the cameras and had not yet downloaded most of the photographs so many were salvaged.  I just bought this computer in May but the hard drive just died.  It is still on warranty but I’ll have to figure out how I can have the warranty honored down here.  I’ll get to work on that ……..

The weather has just been stunning lately.  Not too hot and it cools way down in the evening.   We have spent the last two evenings sitting in the outdoor living room listening to the IPOD shuffle songs and pinching ourselves.  We still can’t believe we are living here.  It seems like every day we see at least one new bird and one new species of butterfly just flying around the yard.  It turns out that September through November or so is the migratory season for several bird species and so we are benefitting from that.   I saw what was either a kite or a hawk two days ago and it was just gorgeous. There also seem to be new types of tanagers hanging around and a couple of new hummingbirds.  We also have a toad that likes hanging out in the plants in the living area every night  – must be good hunting. 

There is a hurricane that is going to hit (or has hit) Nicaragua and Honduras today but we have had no effect of it yet except that the ocean is more rough.  That is actually nice since it has been so calm we couldn’t hear it – now we can 🙂 .    It looks like we might get a bit of rain tomorrow but it doesn’t look to be too bad.  The pacific side of the country is having one of the worst rainy seasons it has ever experienced – roads washing out and flooding.  Two years ago in November we had a rain that fell for five days straight and the bridge into town washed out.    But it was quickly repaired and there was no lasting damage.  At this point even a flooded bridge would not dampen my enthusiasm 🙂

The last couple of days have been just terrific.  Over the last three days there have been two sloths who have visited a tree just a few meters from the house.  At first one would come and leave and then the other would come and then leave.  Two days ago they both were in the same tree – very unusual behavior for sloths who are quite solitary.  I about died laughing when the male would reach out to touch the female and she would smack his hand away.  Eventually she left the tree and went to another.  I have to say that I watch these things obsessively.  Much like a sloth :-)  The picture here is not real clear since I photographing while it was almost dark but you can see the two of them if you look real hard.

Yesterday was independence day in Costa Rica and we went snorkeling to celebrate.  This was my first time ever and I had a BLAST!!!  Even though we did not have fins so could not go too far out on the reef, I was able to figure out how to breath and spent up to five minutes at a time just looking at the reef and the fish.  I was not out far enough to see the schools of fish but I saw so many beautifully colored specimens – all quite small except one.  Now I absolutely cannot wait to get fins and go out further.  I have attached a you tube video to show a quick preview of what I experienced.  Obviously not the stunning video you see on TV but for me WAY COOL!!  By the way, this was done with a tiny little camera made by Fuji that take both still and video images underwater.  AND it cost just a little over $100.  Amazing technology these days.

You don’t!!!  Unless you have some reason to mark the day.  On Saturday mornings there is a farmer’s market so it isn’t too hard to know what day is Saturday.  And on Sunday, the Tico’s  bring their families to Playa Negra (our beach) and play all day long. Other than that, I am not sure how to tell  what day it is and I am not really too concerned about it. 

There are other things that happen that mark the days.  On Saturday, the gardener came and made our yard beautiful!  I am amazed at what they can do with their machetes.  We have a rather large lot and in three hours it was all cleaned up and raked and shrubs all groomed.  He gave us advice on what we needed to do with some of the plants and then said he would see us in a month.  Of course I could not understand most of what he said (I can’t wait to start Spanish school) but Tom was able to converse quite well with him.  He wanted a picture of Kaya and Wiley to take home so Tom took a photograph and printed it off while he was here.  He smiled from ear to ear when he got that.

On Sunday we drove to Sixaola which is the town on the Panamanian border where most people from Puerto Viejo go when they have to leave the country every ninety days.  The drive there was beautiful.  The towns are much different than PV as they are inland and almost everyone works on the banana plantations that line that part of the country.  The road wasn’t too bad except for a couple of spots and those were horrendous.  We decided that when we head to Panama, we will hire a taxi to take us to the border and then will take the bus to Bocas del Toro – islands off the coast of Panama that everyone says are THE place to go. 

When we got back to PV, we walked to a small bar/restaurant called Jeffrey’s  just a few minutes away for lunch.  The lunch was excellent and Jeffrey was there and was glad to meet us since we will be neighbors.  He was curious about us and our family and told us that he had two grown children, both in college in Bri Bri.  He has been here thirty three of his forty three years and is Jamaican.  It was great fun and we have decided we have found our neighborhood get away. 

Tomorrow is Independence Day in Costa Rica – they are marking the 189th year.  It is supposed to be one of the major holidays in the country and it just so happens to fall on my birthday.  We are looking forward to the festivities 🙂 .

The past four weeks have been amazing.  It was just six weeks ago that we both quit our jobs and began the journey that brought us here.  We spent two weeks in Wyoming and Colorado visiting family and then arrived here on August 13th, 2010.  We keep pinching ourselves because it truly is difficult  to believe that this is now our life. 

We get up in the morning between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m. and quickly check email and on line newspapers. Tom takes the dogs to the beach every morning for their morning walk.  If it looks like it is going to be a sunny day, then I do some wash and hang it on the outdoor clothes line.  We then take our coffee to the outdoor living room and listen to the b irds and, more often than not, I photograph new birds that show up in the trees in our yard.  Sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 Tom fixes something for breakfast and I read or study  Spanish (although I should study more than read, I am not yet there).  Sometimes I ride my bike into town and then further on down the road as far as I feel like going.  In the afternoon we sometimes take the car to do errands but more often take a nap or relax in the hammocks.  Tom – sometimes with me, sometimes not – takes the dogs back to the beach for an early evening walk and then he comes back, turns on music and we sit and have a beer or glass of wine before dinner.  Sometimes we just talk until we go to bed, other times we watch a movie.  We go to bed between 9 and 10 and then start all over the next day.  At some point, we will begin volunteering but right now we are just enjoying our lives.

While we have been here the last four weeks we have seen monkeys, birds, frogs, lizards, spiders (although not nearly as many as I had thought we would), centipedes, amazing flowers, trees and vegetation.  We have said hello and goodbye to the great friends who helped us move and we have made new friends with neighbors and reacquainted with friends from before.  We have walked in the ocean, gone to the farmers market, visited and learned about the native plants at the botanical garden, and have visited a wildlife refuge. We have had furniture made and installed to finish out the new house, have purchased all the items we need (bikes, hoses, microwave, toaster, dishes, pillows) and have now settled in for the long term.  I am living the life I want…………..

When we first arrived in PV we bought bicycles.  The last few days I have taken long bike rides from our place in Play Negra out towards Manzanillo.  I try to go in the fairly early morning so that it isn’t too hot.  However, I am finding that since I am riding so near the ocean, the breezes off the ocean as well as the natural breeze from the ride keep it  very nice.  Today I rode a long way trying to find a bakery that I had heard about in Playa Chiquita.  It was well worth the ride – the breads were outstanding!!!  Along the way, I saw a woman snorkeling with her dog.  It was hysterical!!!  The woman would dive down and so would the dog.  The dog would surface first and paddle around waiting for it’s owner to come up.  Once she did, they would both dive down again.  It was great.  Two days ago, I watched the fishing boats coming in with their load for the day.  These bike rides are really helping me start to know my new corner of the world. 

Tomorrow we will talk to a person at a Spanish school that both Tom and I are going to attend beginning the first of October.  He really doesn’t need it so much – he can converse with almost anyone – but I am such a novice!  I am struggling with the language and he is so far ahead of me that it is frustrating for him to try to talk at my level.  He went to high school in Brazil so was fluent in Portuguese which has helpe   d somewhat.  However, he is just more focused than I am.  I just want to hang out in the garden and watch the birds and the butterflies and listen to the ocean 🙂