Monkeys!

Mario's kids are visiting us from Canada so we went to Manuel Antonio to see the wildlife and spend some time on the beach. Manuel Antonio is a national park. It is well worth the trip and the price of a guide. It is not a zoo so each time you go you see different animals. The guides carry telescopes and set them up so you can see the animals clearly. They are very knowledgeable. We saw many different species of bats on this trip.

 Not being one of my favorite animals, there are no pictures :).

You don't need a telescope to see the monkeys. They run along the beach stealing food and fun things from the tourists. The parks discourages contact with them, but they don't seem to care.

You need to secure everything if you hang out on the beach. We saw them steal a cracker from a toddlers hand!Still they are really cool to watch. I never get tired of seeing them. The kid's got a kick out of them too.

You usually can catch sight of a sloth or two as well. This baby was hanging out in a tree very close to the trail. I missed the shot where he looked right at us, but the smiling face is unforgettable. 

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

San Ramon del Alejuela and back

This past weekend was the busiest we have had in a  while! We went to San Ramon del Alejuela to the 50th birthday party for Mario's brother-in-law. They have a furniture factory (all handmade), that's where we got the balcony furniture. They cleared out the main gallery and had the party there. Everyone had a wonderful time! We stayed in town because their house was packed with relatives. We wound up at La Posada Hotel in the center of town. It was beautiful! We stayed in the end room on the second floor (#27). There is a sitting area in front of the room with comfy rockers that looks out on the road in front. The woodwork in the hotel is unbelievable. The beds are all carved as are the doors. It was fairly cheap too, we paid $52 for the room with no breakfast.

On the way home we stopped at El Quetzel Mountain Lodge for a bite to eat. They have a lake where you can fish for your lunch, but we didn't. The most incredible thing (aside from the delicious casado we ate) was the hummingbirds! They have a deck where you can watch them come to eat. The guy from the restaurant, also a bird-watching guide, came out and told us all about them. He put his hand out by the feeder and they landed on his finger to eat! You know we bought a hummingbird feeder when we got home!

Aren't these guys spectacular?! We are getting better at taking photos. Although we wound up with lots of finger shots sans hummer. These guys are QUICK!

On the homefront - Dora got her first haircut! She looks even more like a monkey now!!

We also witnessed a caterpillar turning into a butterfly - way cool!! I tried to get photos but I was working so this was the best I could do. I went in to do some work and when I came out there was a floppy winged butterfly. I came out later and startled it and off it flew.

I got my first bird at the feeder! Mario put out pineapple. I thought he was nuts but this beautiful baltimore oriole came to munch. It's a regular visitor now!

Christmas Prep!

I am having the hardest time getting into the Christmas Spirit when it is so hot out. Usually I am freezing my ass off putting up lights and decorations and this year I had to worry about sunburn!

We decided to put the tree on the balcony, it seems that a lot of people here put the tree outside. At first it seemed too wierd for me, but we use the balcony like a living room so now I am OK with it. In fact we almost NEVER use the living room except to watch TV, so we will see the tree more on the balcony. It was fun to decorate it outside with the birds and the butterflies flying by, but so strange to see my flowers blooming next to it. I have always lived in the NJ/PA area so I am used to it being really cold for Christmas.

The lights looked spectacular at night and we can see the tree from our bed. The downside is that every bug in the valley can too so we had a living display of moths and such fluttering around the lights. Mario let me know that we will have to peel them off of the ornaments when we put the tree away. Nice - not! He also reminded me how happy the spiders will be to have the tree as a home. I really wish he would have mentioned all this sooner lol, the tree may have gone in the living room after all.

The stores are now staying open on Sundays woo hooo another shopping day! There are all these little shed like things for sale in the nurseries. Mario told me that they are for nativity scenes. Apparently that is the decoration of choice here. There are tons of lights too. It is really cool how everyone decorates for Christmas. We drove around visiting family this weekend, and the poorest of neighborhoods still had decorations and lights. I was worried that I would miss the glitz of the US, but nope! They do it big here too!

It's just wierd seeing snowmen decorating the houses and grass. I am thinking most people have never seen one in person. So the tree and most of the decorations are up - let the season begin!

It doesn't get any cuter

Diego and Dora have their afternoon siesta. He does this so she stops bothering him.

Guess who came to lunch?

 These toucans came to eat the platanos that were in a tree near the house.

As I was watching another bird about the same size came to eat along with them. They all rallied and sat on the bananas so he couldn't get any!

 When the rain came the tree fell so we lost our friends.

I just love the view from the balcony!

The portulaca is filling in the driveway nicely. Mario has fallen in love with this plant and looks for it in every nursery in town. I think we have bought the country's supply!

But they are really pretty close up and they will be spectacular once they fill in all the space. He has been adding abono organico (compost) to them and they are really thriving.

I thought I lost the lantana near the bird bath, but it came back after he fertilized it. We have a lot of butterflies that visit this spot. They also seem to love the dog crap in the yard (yuck).

The aftermath - there is a sun!

Annie was right - the sun did come out tomorrow! So far I am REALLY impressed with Costa Rica! There was a lot of damage in our area, there were three washouts from our house to the city. We waited until about 11 to check it out on Saturday. They already had filled in the holes and were moving the debris from the landslides off of the roads. I think it will be a while before we are paved, but we can pass through to town. At one point we had to take a detour and drove through a really scenic neighborhood (with lots of lots for sale - definitely taking this route with pen in hand for the numbers). The detour took us over muddy unpaved roads. There was a steep slick incline that the people without 4 wheel drive were having problems getting up, but the road crews were on it! They had a few dump trucks full of rocky dirt and a roller. We had to wait around a half hour as they dumped the material into the road and rolled it flat, then we all made it up the hill and back out onto the pista.

Costa Rica also stepped to the plate to help those people who had lost everything. Banco Nacional sponsered a food drive and has a link to donate on their website. Banco Costa Rica has a donation line and internet site to donate money.  It is a shame because there really is no house insurance here so these people have lost EVERYTHING, including family members in some cases.

On a lighter note, daylight savings started or ended (I never get it straight) in the states so I am going to enjoy getting up a little later for work.

The plants have benefitted from all the rain and look great! I thought that maybe the fruit hadn't ripened on the trees in the farm this week so I ran out to get bananas. I am still trying to have birds come. I put half of them out the day before yesterday and saw no birds, but when I got up in the morning the bananas were gone! Even the peels. I thought maybe we had early birds. So I put out the second half of the bananas yesterday. Last night we were on the balcony with Mario's brother and his family when I heard the strangest sound. It sounded like the buzz electricity makes. It was pitch black but I could tell the sound was coming from the bird feeder. Mario grabbed a flashlight and the mystery was solved. BATS! I HATE BATS! but there they were all in my feeder eating the bananas. So now I think I will be retiring the feeder. Yeah Yeah I know God's creatures and all that, but did I mention that I am terrified of bats? of all the banana eating animals I could have attracted....

Oh on the pest note, the other night I went downstairs and found the doors still open. We usually close them at dusk, but I guess we both thought the other had done it. The dogs went outside and when they came in I shut and locked the door. Diego made a beeline to the sink and started chasing something along the wall. I screamed for Mario just as a mouse came running right for me! OK so I am also petrified of mice. Who knows why, it's not like the would kill me, but at this point I am not thinking, I am screaming at the top of my lungs and dancing all over the kitchen trying to get past the 2 dogs and the mouse and onto higher ground. Mario came running because he thought it was a snake in the house. When he heard it was a mouse he calmly opened the door and out it ran.

I am starting to identify with Eva Gabor.

Still raining perros y gatos!

Here are some pictures of the area courtesy of Perezzeledon.net:  Floods and landslides.

Rain Rain Go Away

We made the stupid mistake of going to the feria today. It has been raining here non-stop for days. Tropical storm Thomas. The roads were terrible! I never saw conditions like this. They put cement tubes under the road for runoff and I guess the water washes the dirt out around them so the road collapses. You see the cracks and the sunken part and hope that there is actually something solidish under the blacktop as you pass over. Mario so thoughfully pointed out pieces of the road that were caved in like that and said the rest would wash away shortly. SHORTLY?!! Like how shortly? While we are passing over it? He always thinks I am so funny when I am panic stricken. On the way down into town the police had all tractor trailers stopped at Trapiche. We asked if they were closing the road and the officer said not to light cars like our SUV. hmmmm sounded perfectly safe to me. We continued on because it wasn't raining and I foolishly thought it was over. While we were at the feria it started to downpour again. Here in Costa Rica a downpour is like someone tipped a bucket over and is pouring it all over the land. It's hard to distinguish that there are actual raindrops. I was so scared the road would washout to the house. We drove slowly and arrived safely. We passed a downed pole and a lot of the area was without power. Luckily we are not. Hoping that the side of the mountain holds through this bout. They say we are going to get 18 more hours. They have already declared a state of emergency for the country and a lot of people have been killed. Hope this is not a normal winter here.

Trying to stay warm and dry til next time ...

My 7 Dollar Fix

This is what $7 can give you in Costa Rica! We were at the feria when I saw these beauties and had to have them! The flower guy is always so nice. One of the luxuries I have here is fresh flowers. We buy a bunch whenever we go to the feria, well, that would be weekly. Usually I get daisies, he has beautiful yellow and white daisies that last for at least 2 weeks.

This week he had these lilies. They smell wonderful too! Funny thing is in the states I would have paid a ton for these and here it was $3500 colones or $7. Still I hemmed and hawed since I usually only shell out $800 colones for the daisies. But these look incredible in the dining room and have stayed fresh for about a week now so I am glad I splurged!

Here is our other splurge. Diego's new sister Dora. She is a Peke/Maltese mix. Diego loves her (mostly). She has stolen all of his beds and toys. They are playing together nicely, he is sooo gentle. She will stay about 10 lbs so she won't add much to the patas sucias (dirty feet). Mario has nicknamed Diego Patas Sucias since he has a habit of sleeping in the drainage channel in the yard and then coming in to the house. We are constantly mopping up his footprints. Luckily summer is coming so I hear the yard will dry. Thank goodness because the grass here is like a sponge and it squishes as you walk over it!

Last night I was sitting on the balcony when I noticed these wasps near the light. I thought how odd there is a ticket or something there that I hadn't noticed before. Upon closer inspection I realized they had built a nest that covered the whole side of the light! When it got dark Mario broke out the Mata Todo (Kill Everything) and sprayed them. He said there was no other way since these wasps were bravo (angry) and they would bite if we left them there.

Finally here are some of the flowers in bloom in the yard.

There and Back

I just got back from the states again, well on Monday, but it feels like just. It was great to see my friends and family but I really missed my life here. The most interesting part of the journey as far as blog material goes was the company I kept on the plane ride to and from. On the way down I met a guy who lives in Escazu. We had a wonderful time talking about our lives in Costa Rica. He told me that there are tons of American places in Escazu, and that you can get most everything that you would want there. Except apparently good lunch meat since he brought back a slicer and a backpack full of meat on his last trip. He said he caused quite a stir in customs lol. He also shared his story of a failed marriage to a Colombian woman and warned me to take precautions when entering a relationship with a person from another country. On the way home I met a woman who had lived in Costa Rica for 18 years. She also loved the country, but had decided to move back to the states to be near her grandkids. She had been married to a Costa Rican man and gave the same warning. She had many stories of people who had married here and then had to pay alimony when they divorced. She said that one man could not leave the country because of the alimony payments. Very scarey stuff. It's sad to think that love needs a lawyers help, but I think it is the same where ever you live. Just here I am in the dark about the laws. Better study up.

Ketchup and Mishmosh Illustrated

So this is my first attempt at a video. I took this on Sep 15th in the center of PZ while the families paraded by with thier faroles. It was really beautiful. All of the kids (with help it looked like) made these beautiful boxes, some in the shape of houses, some animals, some abstract, but all with a light inside. For Sep 15th, Independence Day here, they have a big parade and everyone walks around the town square with their faroles. We had a flat tire before we went to town and stopped at a gas station to get it patched. The greasy mechanics were all huddled around this small table making a Spongebob farole. Too funny, they were all discussing what to use and how to do it, it really looked great, but we left before they finished it. The other odd thing is that the faroles are lit with a candle. It was so strange to see really little children proudly holding their paper and cardboard faroles with a lit candle inside and yet there were no burns that I saw. Something you wouldn't see in the states.

After the parade the children from the various towns don traditional costumes and dance on a stage they had set up. I had no idea there were so many people in this area! The dances were spectacular you could tell the kids worked really hard to learn them.

On the homefront, Mario talked to our landlord about the mud problem. I think it was after we got the waterbill lol. It was only about $20 but he feels it is high since he is washing the car like twice a day. So she agreed to go halves on a load of stone. He got it all spread out how he wanted it so now the car comes in relatively clean unless it is pouring. Which it does everyday at 2 and in fact is doing as I type *sigh*. I am patiently waiting for the summer they promise me will be hot and dry. I am so cold lately, whoda thunk it in the tropics! So here is the driveway now:

Note the tire tracks on the right side. After they got done laying the stone Mario felt that it should be compacted and used a half a tank of gas riding back and forth over it. Well I may be exaggerating a tad, but it seemed like he went back and forth for ever.

Here is the bottom part of the drive. We have some stone left up top and Mario tells me he will be leveling the hump and filling them in. They left some extra in case the mud sucked up what they had laid, but it seems like it will be fine so he wants the bottom to look good too. Plus the road is really steep coming in on this side so it is hard to hit the 2 tracks when we come in this way. You can see the portulaca we planted down the center in this pic, it should be beautiful once it fills in. We just got 10 more plants to help it fill in faster! Also Mario divided the purple plants and now they are filling in to be a straight line on both sides of the drive.

Guadelupe asked me to post some pictures of the yard for her brother in the states so here they are (Mario has been VERY busy!):

 This is my attempt at keeping the mountain at bay. We have 2 of these vines and then 3 other kinds that are planted at intervals next to the house. I also put in morning glory seeds. I am hoping all of these flowering vines will grab hold of the dirt and keep it from falling, plus it will look spectacular when they are blooming!

 These are plain old marigolds, but they really match the house. They grow bigger everyday. Mario loaded them up with compost. We also got fertilizer with Guadelupe's help, she is the landlady, and he has fertilized all the palms, purple plants, and the flowering bushes that were here. They look better already!

This is another shot of the big area we planted. We doubled the plants in the hopes it will fill in faster. Mario liked the marigolds so much we filled in the lantana with yellow ones. They really pop on sunny days.

This is another shot of the mountain in the front of the house. The blueish gray palm is a bismark palm and you can see the bougainvillea we planted with the same hope of it climbing up and covering the dirt.

This is the back yard, we put the mesh fence up to keep Diego in. There is no traffic, but I am afraid he would walk in front of the few cars that pass. Also being in front of the coffee farm there is a danger of snakes if he wanders. There are also poisonous toads, but they are almost as big as he is and he is afraid of them.

This is the area up top where the new part of the driveway is. Mario made me this cute garden. He used stones that were scattered all over the place. We put coreopsis seeds that a woman had given me when I was admiring her beautiful garden. The people here are so nice. They are starting to come up so I hope one day when we build our own home I can start more plants from these.

That's all the pics. I am heading home on Friday for my 3 month treck. When you come to Costa Rica you get a 3 month Visa and have to leave the country for 72 hours once it is up. I am going to visit my parents for 11 days in New Jersey. It's with mixed feelings as I will miss my home and life here, and my mom is going into assisted living. I hope to help with the transition for both her and my dad. It's one of the hard things about being here, not being able to help at the drop of a hat; but, I am a phone call away and talk to my dad almost everyday.

My mom's situation has  also caused me to worry what will happen when I get older. In my experience here I see that families care for the older folks. Usually the families are very big so there are many people who can help out. Either someone comes to stay with the elderly person or they move them in to their home. I have no family here and Mario is the same age as me. I have been thinking a lot about what will happen as we age. He has no children here either so he is in the same boat. Luckily we are both healthy and as I found out when I made this move nothing needs to be permanent. We are starting to look at land and we are keeping ease of travel and public transportation in mind as we do. This house is wonderful and we really love it, but it is a far way down from the main road and pretty steep. We don't think we would want to build a house in a similar terrain because it would be hard to make it out if we couldn't drive. 

On a lighter note - my son turned 23 today! Happy Birthday Jake!!!

Whale Watching and Why I just LOVE Costa Rica!

Today we drove down to Playa Bellena to go whale watching. It was a great day. We arrived and thank goodness had the GPS on or would have missed the dinky sign pointing to the dirt road to the beach. We drove until we hit the parking lot where they had an old guy tugging on a plastic ribbon which blocked the cars from passing through. If you passed the lot he lowered the ribbon. Apparently they blocked it just long enough for the attendant to convince you that this is where you want to park. If you decided not to it was OK you could pass. But most people thought since the road was blocked you had to park here. The guy persuaded Mario that for 1500 colones ($3.00) it was best to have the car safely parked. We purchased the tickets to the boat for $15,000 colones each ($30.00). You would have had to paid an additional $6.00 to enter the park, but after much discussion they decided that I do indeed live in Costa Rica and we got in free. Funny enough the park entrance, like so many things, was in dollars.

The tickets were for the 9 AM boat so we decided to have a bite to eat before we left and stopped in a cute little place along the road to the boat. They had 1 entree to choose from, pinto (beans and rice with cilantro), sauced meat, and hot dog. Interesting combination but filling. The resident little dog waited patiently for his scraps. As we were eating we saw the boat guy pass with the people that we were supposed to go with. As usual I panicked and said we had to go and Mario assured me we could catch another boat. Sure enough when we left somebody stopped us and had us follow them to the next boat. I really have to learn the Pura Vida way!

We went out about 20 minutes and then hung around waiting for whales. All of the advertisements I had seen said there were high tec GPS systems to locate the whales. Well our captain and mate had cell phones and they kept calling and were called getting the latest positions on the whales. We saw several spouts as they surfaced, very cool as I have never seen that except on TV. The mate (I am using the term loosely as you can see how big the boat was in the picture) told us that they are not allowed to be less than 200 meters from the whales and there is a 15 minute time limit for each boat. They also had to go very slowly as not to scare them. Just as we were giving up we saw what we at first thought was a huge dolphin, but no! it was a baby albino whale! We only could see it's back as it swam bit the baby and mother surfaced a few times and it was soooo coool!

 Here is a picture of the mom. I tried to get the baby but I have really slow reflexes and have a ton of pictures of the ocean now. That dark spec in the ocean is her. The group we were with were so friendly! and we had a wonderful time.

As you can see the boat is pretty small. on the ride back I noticed the "captain" kept lifting this blue container on the floor. Then I noticed the container had a hose that went into the motor. You guessed it, it was gas! I was thinking hmmm this would never fly in the states. But pura vida we had enough gas to make the trip.

All in all it was a an experience and I just love the laid back atmosphere here. It is like a vacation all the time.

Pics n stuff

I have had a few requests for a pic of the front of the house so here ya go! The doors on the bottom go into the living room and the one on the top goes into the bedroom. Poor planning for the upstairs door because although it is so great having the light stream in and the balcony right there, everyone walking by can look right into the bedroom! Ok so like maybe everyone walking by is like 1 or 2 people a day, but still it's a little creepy. I wanted to buy tension rods and put up a curtain since we can't put holes in the door for a regular rod, but apparently no one in Costa Rica uses tension rods or my spanish sucks because they all look at me like I have 2 heads when I ask for it in the stores. They get the idea of what I want, but keep coming out with shower curtain rods. Same concept, wrong scale. Oh well, I go to the states again in Oct so I know what's on the list.

We ordered a bunch of furniture from Mario's brother-in-law and it is really great! These are the loungers and table that he made us. Eventually we will get cushions for them, but I am really enjoying laying on the balcony reading. Diego loves it too, he has become a lap dog!

This is a crappy picture of the garden that Mario put in for me. It's nice that he is planting everything while I work. I have tall orchids with mexican petunias in front. In front of that we put lantana. The butterflies love lantana. There is also a tree that gets really pretty pink flowers but I doubt we will be here to enjoy it when it is tree size. I like the flowers so I will enjoy them while it is still small. There is also a fig tree and mamon chino that I plan to keep at bush size. Easier to pick the fruits and they tell me the fruit is better too. The center of the driveway has portulaca which is beautiful on sunny days. We hope it will fill in the dirt strip with a burst of color. The redish mounds were here when we moved in. Mario thinned out some that were close to the house and filled in the holes. It should look like a strip soon. He did the other side of the drive today, hopefully they grow fast. It is challenging here because unlike the soil in Los Angeles this is awful orange clay. We have been buying sacks of organic fertilizer, abono here, but still things seem to yellow quickly. It's a shame because there are palm trees and other flowering bushes around the perimeter of the property and they are dying. We are doing our best to save them so maybe with some TLC they will make it.

I was trying for a pic of the planter here, but I love how the sky looks. Sitting on the balcony just makes me glad to be alive, it's incredible how beautiful it is here. We are starting to look at properties. Mario wants to sell or trade his house in Los Angeles for a property in this area so we can stay.

Well that's it for now. There is a whale festival in Playa Ballena tomorrow and we are going to go out on a boat to see the dolphins and whales. I can't wait! I will put up pics as soon as I can.

Roads in the Rain

Thanks to Casey from a Dull Roar for posting the pics of the road to our house. It was a mess for weeks and really scarey to drive over! One day we were heading up the mountain behind a really heavy truck and I made Mario stay wayyyyy back because I was sure the truck wouldn't make it and the road would collapse with us right behind him! To see the pics and Casey's post - A Dull Roar: A road by any other name would smell as ...

COWS

This morning I was in the bedroom making the bed when Diego started barking towards the front balcony. I opened the door to see what he was upset about and to my surprise saw 4 cows coming down the driveway! They were calmly eating the grass along the edges. Diego went ballistic and started barking like crazy! The cows looked up and bolted away. I swear Diego puffed up to twice his size, lol, he was so proud that he scared those HUGE dogs off his property!

I can communicate!

After months of people asking if I am living in a tunnel I can finally drop Skype and make calls via a phone card! I have no idea why when I use Skype to call out it sounds like I am in a cavern, but it does. So my conversations consisted of what? what?! WHAT!!! OK I will call you back. ICE, the telephone/electricity company here is government owned and currently the only game in town. For some reason (read $$$ here) they do not let you use Skype on your cell phone to call out. You can forward incoming calls to your cell, but cannot make Skype calls that way. In both of the houses I have lived in there was no internet option save the data card over the airwaves. Because of their gross underestimation of how many people would want to actually use the internet, there is hardly enough bandwidth to have any kind of performance over these cards. I am able to work at a decent speed, well mostly, but trying to use VOIP and run anything else is virtually impossible. So I shut down every application with the exception of Skype and repeat myself incessantly. This makes teleconferencing for work virtually impossible. So if I had a phone meeting I was using an office at Mario's brother's shop or hoping I would not have to share a desktop while on the phone. The nicer folks would call me so I could let the call go to my cell and they would conference me in. Those days are gone - YIPPPPIE!

While we were at the feria I decided to stop at the used books stand in the back corner. I had seen the ad for it on Craigslist and really wanted to read some english. I do miss english here. So I stopped and there is this sign - phone calls to the US 6 cents! Woo hoo - now I had been looking on the internet for phone cards, but couldn't fins any that let you call from CR to the US - only the other way around. So I bought one to try out. I also bought books and cheese, yeah there's always a mixed bag at the feria. I spoke the vendor for a while, what a nice woman. Mario was laughing because he knew I was liking the english for a change of pace. But anyway the card is great! I got 200 minutes for $12 (she takes a little profit on the card). I used the whole 200 minutes over the weekend and in meetings today so I emailed her for more and asked for a card with more than 200 minutes. Within a few hours she had gotten me 2000, well I will have the codes tomorrow, but whew what a relief! Everyone I talked to asked why they could understand me, my dad's really happy cause he was the biggest complainer!

The info for anyone who is interested in these cards is:

http://puravidaconnections.com/
or email 6cents@puravidaconnections.com

I am not selling the cards, just passing the info along. It was a godsend for me so maybe someone else is having the same issues.

What a storm!

OK it was yesterday, but still the effects kind of freaked me out. We weathered it close to our old house in Los Angeles because we were at a soccer game again. It didn't feel that bad there, just a TON of rain and thunder and lightning. When we got home I thought we had been robbed! We had Mario's sister, Maria, and her family over in the morning. It's one of the things I have had to adjust to. She came at 8:30 AM. I don't know about you, but in the states if someone decided 8:30 was a good time to visit I would set them straight! Here we are usually up at 5:30 so it was no big deal.

Anyway, we showed them the house and must not have shut the doors well because we came home to Diego greeting us from the balcony! Both balcony doors had blown open, the 2 bedrooms had the screens wide open, and the trap door for the attic had blown off! It must have been a LOT of wind! All of our valuables were still intact so I am sure we weren't robbed lol. Mario assures me wind can do all of the opening we had experienced. Oh and the upstairs floors were all soaking wet so the wind came with rain. I am kind of glad we weren't home, but I am sure Diego was scared!

Las Quebradas Biological Center

Today we had planned to go to Wilson Biological Center in San Vito but it was POURING this morning and we decided against it. When the day turned out to be beautiful we wound up at Las Quebradas Biological Center across the river from our house. The drive there is pretty, and the gardens are OK. It was only $2 to get in, $2.50 if you don't live in Costa Rica, and you sort of get what you pay for. If you live close it's worth a trip. It seemed like maybe in the tourist season there was more because there were several buildings and a souvenier shop that were all closed. There was a class from Canada volunteering to fix up the butterfly exhibit so that was closed too. The man at the gate said in the morning there are monkeys, but we didn't see any. So these are the cows on the road to the place. I never tire of the cows in the road lol.

The really cool thing about the ride up was that we got to see our house from afar. Being bright orange it really stands out!

OK Maybe you don't find our Diego as cute as we do, but this is new hobby... we call him Señor Busybody.