Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from the House of Dreams!

Independence Day

On September 15th, Kirby and I were making our way from our mountain cabin to the Pacuare Reserve and we had to stop by San Jose to visit the main offices of the reserve (more on that later).  That morning, when our 6am bus from San Isidro to San Jose was jam packed, we realized that it was Independence Day!  People from all over the country were traveling to wherever their families are and apparently a lot of people come home to San Jose. 

While we were getting directions to the Pacuare offices at our favorite hostel (Galileo) we heard drums and other instruments nearby, so we ran out to the main street (conveniently located only a block away from our hostel) and were just in time to see the Independence Day Parade!  I copied this info from Wikipedia to give you a little more info.

Like the rest of Central America, Costa Rica never fought for independence from Spain. On September 15 1821, after the final Spanish defeat in the Mexican War of Independence (1810-1821), the authorities in Guatemala declared the independence of all of Central America. That date is still celebrated as Independence Day in Costa Rica, even though, technically, under the Spanish Constitution of 1812 that had been re-adopted in 1820, Nicaragua and Costa Rica had become an autonomous province with its capital in León.

It was so much fun to see all the festivities, and when the parade was over we walked to the office and got to see another amazing sight - a very grandiose cemetery with massive headstones and sculptures, surrounded by bright blue sky and huge puffy clouds! It was a very hot and humid day, not so great for walking but amazing for the photographs.  At the end of our walk, after a couple miles and about a gallon of sweat, our fears were confirmed: the offices were closed.  We had thought that might happen, but because the coordinator had verified our visit for the 15th we'd been holding out hope that our walk would not be in vain.  It was character building, I guess.  Luckily Kirby bought us a Fresca to lighten the mood for our walk back to the hostel and the first sip of that icy cold drink was worth so much more than the few hundred colones (~$1) it cost.  After quenching our thirst and resting for a bit, we were ready to shop our way through San Jose, on the quest for the perfect rain boots, which as you already know was a successful mission.  Alas, my boots have succumbed to the elements somewhat, but Kirby's are going strong!  Anyways, I've gone off on a tangent as I tend to do, so let's move on to the photos!

These kids were all dressed in the traditional style of their region. They all looked great and it was so cute to see so many little boys with neckerchiefs and all the girls in their long frilly dresses.  The boy with the red neckerchief and the sunglasses is the best part of this picture, don't you think?

Some of the students looked very unenthusiastic about participating in this parade, but others were all about it. This girl in the center was one of the gung-ho participants. Her little skirt was shakin all the way down the street. 

Here is one of the unenthusiastic participants. There were lots of students walking alongside their peers, most of them with sunglasses and a cell phone.  This little guy is a perfect example.

More of the regional styles, this one is even better because they're all holding hands! 

The typical Tica - nicely dressed, with a cell phone in hand.  Seems like most of the little girls here have a dress like this one and they wear them every so often - this isn't the first time we've seen this outfit.

The best band of the parade, and the most nicely accessorized as well

This is when we still thought we had a chance at finding the offices open. Not only were they closed but they were very hard to locate! Luckily San Jose has street names/numbers, unlike most of the places here, but they arent necessarily in a logical or easily navigable order.  For example, we were looking for #231 Calle 27 and #242 was on the block before it.  Doesn't sound so bad now, but in the blistering heat it was incredibly frustrating. 

They had a mariachi band at the Galileo hostel to celebrate!

And now it is once again time to return to the house of dreams and whip up another delicious feast!  Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!

Papayas not pumpkins...

Our scary handmade tissue ghosts

Here I sit at the house of dreams trying to write more blogs about all our wonderful adventures with Shuli. It has been raining on and off this morning and my bed was so cozy I stayed in it most of the morning. The volcano is hiding behind a blanket of misty clouds and Katie and Denise are quietly enjoying their Toastlettes and Nutella with coffee and a morning game of Backgammon upstairs on the balcony. I’m sitting on our little green couch downstairs that surprisingly isn’t very comfortable even though it lives here in the house of dreams (it cant all be perfect). It also has a mysterious smell that seems to get a little worse when it rains...Perhaps staying in bed to write would have been a better choice.

Tomorrow is Halloween and I am feeling a little homesick for all things Fall. Although it has been rainy the past few days here in La Fortuna, it is still warm and our surroundings are very tropical. Instead of a pumpkin patch next door we have a papaya farm. No talk of costumes, no scarecrows, no pumpkins, no decorations, no leaves changing colors. At the vegetable stand we looked for something that reminded us of Fall to help decorate our cabin but the best we could find was a hanging onion braid. It sort of adds a Fall like feel to the kitchen and now we’ve got a lot of onions to eat! 

Here you can see the onions really adding a huge dose of Autumn to our kitchen as well as a nice place to hang our spooky ghosts! 

There is no Halloween celebration here really, we heard talk of some people dressing up and going to the local club called Volcan Look. We have only been to Volcan Look once when we first got into town with Shuli and it was a pretty funny experience. It turned out to be a pretty large venue with enough room to host a large show downstairs and a bar upstairs. The downstairs was closed on the night we went to check it out and there were very few people there, with one lone ranger tearing up the dance floor. The whole purpose of our trip out was to shake our groove thing so after a few awkward moments we jumped right in and joined the one guy on the dance floor. It was fun to dance for awhile but over-all the place was too loud and not really our scene. So needless to say we aren’t feeling inclined to join the costume clad few at Volcan Look. I bet if we went we would end up being the only ones dressed up! 

The lone ranger tearing up the dance floor, his moves were so quick they couldn't be captured on digital media.

 

So we are trying to liven things up around here and are gearing up for our own little Halloween party. I don’t want to give away any details but we have come up with some great ideas on how to have our own tropical Halloween. In our next blog we will share with you all the successful party details. 

Well, the rain is finally letting up and we are going into town to get a few goodies for Halloween and post this blog! I guess the continuation of our adventures will have to wait another day. For now here is a sneak peek picture of our Halloween celebrations! Enjoy! 

Pacuare Pictures

Kirby found all these sand dollars on the beach and we set up this crab to guard her stash

Life is good at the house of dreams. The days revolve around meals, with coffee and the beloved nutella toastlettes in the morning, a re-invention of leftovers for lunch, and a delicious feast prepared by Kirby to finish off the evening. There has been sun in the mornings for the past couple days and today we spent some time out in the cold tub, which is a round mini pool that seems like it would be a hot tub but it's cold.  Perfect for an afternoon of cloud, bird, and ant watching.  We've been working in some yoga as well (aren't you proud, Shuli!) but I must say Kirby has been a much more diligent student than I this past week.  Surprisingly, our relaxing schedule hasn't allowed for many writing opportunities so this blog is just a random mix of pictures to finish off our documentation of our time at the Pacuare Reserve.   Enjoy!

Who doesn't love seeing love in the wilderness!?

We spent about 15 minutes trying to get a good picture of this guy.  He looked so beautiful with his bright red wings, but when he wasn't flying he was just plain brown. Kirby captured him perfectly here, you can even see his orange antennae!

Cleaning up the canals with the school kids - can't you see how into it they were!? What they really wanted was our feathery hair clips, as you can see here.

This little bat lived in our room with us. He was our favorite roommate because he kept to himself and helped keep the bugs under control. 

Our room at the reserve.  Too bad we didn't think to take a picture of it when we were all moved in. Even though we were only there a week, we settled in quite nicely.

Monkey eating breakfast

These crabs were all over the beach and the forest

The tree in the center of this photo looked amazing, so huge and with so many vines and plants growing all over it. The photo doesn't come clost to capturing its majesty, but it gives an idea at least.

Kirby had a mysterious way of attracting the animals at Pacuare - she found this little turtle right at our doorstep.

We re-located the little turtle back to the lagoon where he belongs. Here he is, about to take the first step into his new life.

This butterfly is cool, but I look a  little creepy

Jungle camouflage

Howler monkey snack time

Ok hope you enjoyed the pictures - now we're off to buy groceries for the next feast!

Nocturnal Night Walks at Pacuare

The rain clouds are still shrouding our volcano in mystery. They slide their way up towards the top and they swirl down to the valley floor.  They bunch up and stack on top of each other to create their own rendition of a volcano that is much bigger and more fluffly than the one they are hiding.  Right now they are covering the volcano with a wall of white mist that begins as a grayish-blue haze behind the trees and gets brighter and whiter as it reaches upwards - the sky is one huge cloud of white. 

I'm sitting on our balcony, starting my day with what has become my favorite daily ritual - toastlettes with nutella and coffee.  It's so good, sometimes I treat myself and start my afternoon with it as well.  This delicious combination is so simple yet so delicious, and it brings back wonderful memories.  When I was studying abroad in Italy my host mom Nunzia would always be there in the kitchen when i woke up, poised and ready to start steaming the milk for my latte to accompany the toastlettes (they're crunchy, toasty little pieces of bread you buy from the store) with nutella she had waiting on the breakfast plate, usually accompanied by fruits or eggs or sometimes even a pastry.  Spreading the craemy chocolatey spread onto the crispy toastlettes, dipping them into my steamy coffee drink, then letting all the flavors and textures of this breakfast delicacy splash together never got old. And it still hasn't.

The coffee, the toastlette, the clouds

Aah, the toastlettes... Anyways, back to the point of this post. As you probably already guessed, when I started writing I intended to draw from my experiences on our night walks at Pacuare instead of my morning routine at the house of dreams.   As you already saw from Kirby's post about our time there, we were living deep(ish) in the jungle with a lot of time on our hands.  Going on night missions to catch glimpses of frogs (and whatever else might be creeping around in the dark) was one of my favorite activities not just because of the sights but also the sounds.  There are so many noises in the jungle and they completely surround you with such force that you can literally feel the vibrations of the creatures all around you even though you see only a tiny fraction of them.  Our first night walk we saw some lizards sleeping in trees and some crabs scuttling around, but the frogs, serpents, and crocodiles eluded us.  We did see a spider (one of the half-the-size of your face kind) descend from high in the trees onto the ground just a few feet from us, though, and this event was the main reason Kirby decided to skip the next night walk.  The next walk featured less spiders and more frogs, including with the appearance of what seems to be Costa Rica's most popular frog.  Luckily we'd seen one a few nights earlier and Kirby was able to spend some more quality time with it in the safe and comfortable dining hall instead of the fearsome jungle.  Not that our cabin at Pacuare was much different, with all our spiders, snakes, and bats we had as roommates.

Danilo, our fearless leader!

These toads (sapos) were our most popular nocturnal friends. They came out just after the sun went down and stayed out all night.  Bathroom visits were prime time for spottings and it was sometimes hard not to step on them - we were so tired and they were all over the place! 

Don't know what this little guy was but he was very cute. I really felt for him - the jungle is a scary place to be a small and furry animal. 

The red eyed tree frog climbing up Danilo! Notice that he is wearing a T-shirt.  On our first walk with him I thought, "hey, its hot out here and Danilo is wearing just a tank top. Maybe I'll take off my long sleeve and wear MY tank top." Bug bites like crazy the next day... guess I'm not ready to live like the Ticos yet.

He's so cute I had to give you another shot!

This snake was soooo long and skinny. My finger covered my flash in a wierd way and it makes him look kind of diabolical I think. Do you see it?

This was an extra special treat! One night I was going pee and noticed this guy on the door of the stall in front of me - molting! He's leaving his old brown shell behind and his new wings havent even spread yet. Watching him pull himself out of his old skin was fascinating! 

Kirby thought that last picture was too gross to end with, so I popped this little guy in to leave you on a good note!

I know that even though these creatures of the night are pretty amazing, what you're really craving is more moth pics! Don't worry, we've got monster moths coming out soon - the biggest of the biggest. Then I'll just save the rest for the video :) We have plenty of time for editing now that we're chillin in the house of dreams. We've been really living it up and every meal is a flavor adventure now that we have ample ingredients in our well-stocked fridge. We're about to go grocery shopping now, actually.  Provecho! (that's kind of like saying bon apetit)  Oh, also, guess what? The volcano popped out of the clouds on our walk over here!  Now we can eat our meals as they were meant to be eaten - with a view of the volcano!

The Lesson of the Sea Turtle

With so little internet time and an abundance of adventures in the last few weeks, a backlog of blogs has been building up and now it is time to clean up shop. We left off last with the beginning of our Pacuare Reserve stay. The first couple of days there were action ( and bug and snake) packed as you read. The rest of our stay at the reserve however was an interesting time spent reflecting on our trip and the future, doing some volunteer work, working out and trying to combat the heat and bugs. 

The Pacuare Reserve is quite isolated as you could tell from my previous blog describing the trek it took to get there! We had no electricity and therefore no internet. The lack of electricity was not really a big deal, in fact it felt like summer camp to me even though I have never been. Reading by candlelight at night, Katie in the bunk next to me, giggling and talking. What we slowly realized is that without electricity and internet we had nothing to distract us from out own thoughts. The first few days were quickly filled with many conversations about the future and our trip. It was the first time Katie and I had really slowed down since beginning our adventures and I think we were feeling a little overwhelmed at all the possibilities that lay before us. The circular motion of conversation soon had our heads spinning and the unknown future seemed even more daunting than before. What do we want to go back to school for? When? Where? When and where am I going to find a husband or someone to share my life with? What is the next stop on our Costa Rican Adventure? What is for dinner?

The View from our Pacuare Dining Room

Gladly, we actually never had to worry about our meals which was a real treat for us since we had been traveling with all our luggage and planning meals, including how and when to cook them and how to carry the ingredients had become quite the chore. Countless hours were spent standing in the middle of the grocery store aisle discussing what is not only the most economical but also the easiest for transportation. The meals at Pacuare were set on a schedule everyday and we were so relieved to not have to worry for the whole week about what we were going to eat and how we were going to cook it. We got three hot meals a day and it became Katie's mission to eat as much as possible at each meal in an effort to maintain her lovely figure, while I on the other hand tried some portion control tactics in hopes of a downsize. The meals were good, eggs or pancakes for breakfast, and pasta or a meat dish with some veggies offered for lunch and dinner traditional Tico style foods. Oh and don’t worry there were still rice and beans with every meal and they even had Lizano Salsa! 

We quickly fell into a nice routine since our meal times were set and our week began to take off. The main point of us being at the Reserve was to volunteer and help with the nesting of sea turtles, unfortunately we made it there in their last week and the season was coming to an end. There were still some Green Sea Turtles nesting and we were determined to see them! The turtles come up onto the beach at night and dig big holes where the beach meets the jungle and lay their eggs before heading back out to sea. Each night at 9pm there was a patrol with a couple of the research assistants to scan the beach for any turtle activity. Should there be any, we were to document it and possibly assist the turtle in creating a nest more likely to produce healthy baby turtles by covering it better or hiding it from poachers. Katie and I were excited at the prospect of seeing the turtles and couldn’t wait for our first patrol! However we soon realized that walking the 11 kilometers of beach (nearly 7 miles) from the South station (where we were staying) to the North station (which had been closed since the season was almost over) and then back was really really tiring and difficult especially without the excitement of seeing a turtle to keep your spirits up and moving. Our first three patrols were uneventful and we soon began to refer to the Reserve as Costa Rican boot camp. Up early every morning with the sun and monkeys howling, meals scheduled, our own workout plan of Beginning Pilates supplementing our nightly walks, diligently applying sunscreen and insect repellent every 4 hours to maintain full protection against the tropical elements, and fitting in some volunteer work during the days all added up to our own little Costa Rican Tropical Boot Camp! 

On our fourth night we dragged our weary bodies out of bed, dressed defensively against the mosquitoes and set out for another patrol. This time we were rewarded for our hard work by seeing a Green Sea Turtle at the top of the beach finishing up her nest! She was so beautiful and it was really magical to see such a large creature in the middle of her own reproductive ritual. The moon was shining and the gentle waves took her back out to sea and just like that she was gone. The tracks up to her nesting spot were the only evidence of this awesome event and we quickly covered them as best we could to help protect the newly laid eggs from anything that may harm it. 

The next day we headed out with the head research assistant Katharine who we had become friendly with over the last few days to excavate a Green Sea Turtle nest that should have recently hatched. There are regularly scheduled excavations of the nests laid on the reserves beach in order to help keep track of the turtles nest success and population. While these excavations can be sad because often there are eggs that have not made it and contain turtles in various stages of development, they are also interesting and we were ready to learn more about the turtle we were lucky to spot the night before. I helped Katharine take inventory of the various stages of development that the eggs were in at the first nest. At the second nest we were met with a great surprise. As Katharine unearths the nest she is met with a baby green turtle ready to head out to sea. We ended up finding about 7 babies coming out of the nest. I couldn’t believe how tiny and perfect these little baby turtles were. We watched as they got acquainted with their surroundings, figured out which way to the sea and began their journey across the sand to begin their lives as sea turtles. As they struggled over driftwood towards the sea I was overwhelmed with how large the world is and how fleeting life can be. Here are these small creatures heading out into the great unknown with no fear just the shells on their backs and the light of the ocean guiding them. Such a beautiful moment celebrating the beginning of new lives. A storm rolled in on the walk back to our bunk and we happily got totally soaked. 

Katie with a baby green sea turtle! 

Baby turtles orienting themselves and beginning their hike to the ocean

Throughout our days at the reserve we had various volunteer projects that we completed, mostly help cleaning and setting up for the end of season party that was scheduled for the day after we left the reserve. We wanted to stay and enjoy the festivities but it was only for those who had been involved all season, and although our week had seemed quite long and rigorous, it did not qualify us for a party invite. It was still nice helping out with the preparations and doing out part. My favorite project however was collecting cute little arbolitos (baby trees) from the beach and transplanting them near the edge of the reserves cabin areas to help with erosion. I really enjoyed getting my hands dirty and planting trees always feels good. We even sang as we worked ensuring happy growth for the trees we planted.

Overall our stay at the reserve was a time for reflection, for bug bites, for enjoying the simple things, for giving back, and for eating. It was a time we won’t soon forget and have even considered applying as research assistants for the upcoming season. We still aren’t sure what our futures hold but we look forward to what’s ahead of us with hope and excitement, just like the baby turtles entering the sea.