Moth Measurements - Mini!

The Emerald Princess isn't much bigger than a pea!

Here they are, finally! The actual moth measurements! Now that we have a home,  we have time to focus on the important things, like blogging about moths! Asking you to rank them in order of size was kind of a trick question because as you can see these guys are all incredibly tiny. That was one of our favorite things about the moths - the amount of intricate detail in each and every one, from the big ones that could be mistaken for birds to these super mini's.  I put my pinkie finger in all the shots to give a sense of scale, and look how huge it looks! 

 

Mr. Moleface was so small we needed the macro zoom just to see his little moleface!

White stealth got lucky enough to get his close-up with Kirby!

The teeny tiny Teddy Bear Warrior!

The Yellow Fringe-Bottomed moth had the tiniest fringe you've ever seen!

The Brown eyed pig's snout almost escaped our notice because it was so small

Mr. Smith has some really cool antennae, but you might have to get an inch from the screen to see them

The mini Magical Emperor

Shakti by Shuli

Its a gray morning here at the house of dreams - rain clouds have been hugging the volcano for the past couple days and it seems that they have no intention of letting go anytime soon.  Last night was especially wet and it felt so wonderful to be tucked into our cozy beds in our little mountain cabin, listening to the water pour down our roof while we there lay warm and dry.  Now that we are all settled in to our new home, we have plenty of time to write about all the stuff that's happened since we left the Pacuare reserve - like Shuli's visit!

We could blog for hours about all the fun and laughs we had with our amazing friend, but this particular post is dedicated to her yoga practice.  Shuli has been practicing yoga for many years and decided to become a certified yoga instructor this spring (right after earning her master's in psychology from Colombia!!), and we were lucky enough to squeeze in a few yoga sessions during her time here. 

Our first was right at the base of the volcano! 

We hiked to the observatory, which offered us picture-perfect views of the volcano and a smooth, flat surface that we soon realized would be perfect for yoga practice.  Shuli definitely has natural talent as a yoga instructor, and as she lead us through our session she did a great job of creating a sense of peace and calm while at the same time helping us to channel the energy of the mountain.  Our surroundings made it very easy to feel the connection between our bodies and the environment.  We could hear so many sounds of life around us as we focused on the sounds of our own breath, and our spot became even more magical as butterflies swirled in and out of our view.  We ended our practice with a meditation and left feeling invigorated and centered.  We felt very appreciative of the beauty surrounding us as well as the beauty that comes from simply being alive and present in your own body and mind.

 Our next yoga session was much longer and more intense, and we enjoyed it even more.  Shuli once again did a great job of guiding our thoughts and bodies with positive and throughtful intention.   It was a very surreal experience - our own private yoga class with such a talented instructor in such a breathtaking environment.  We stayed at a beautiful resort right on the ocean with amazing landscaping and a huge lawn and we had it all to ourselves. We were driving by and randomly decided to check in and see if they would allow us to camp on the lawn.  For just a few dollars we camped on the lawn (by far our most comfortable camping spot) and got to use the pool, restaurant kitchen, huge dining area, and electricity (!), as well as walk the beach that was covered with more shells than sand.  Waking up in the morning to a dip in the pool, breakfast with an ocean view, and our own private yoga class made Kirby and I ask what Shuli wondered almost every day of her trip here, "is this real life!?"

Shuli is just setting out on what promises to be a long and beautiful journey as a yogi master, and I feel so lucky to have been a student of hers, if just for a couple short sessions.

If you are lucky enough to live in the New York area then you are in the prime location to experience your own private yoga class with the lovely Shuli, but don't waste any time because this little globe trotter is not guaranteed to stay anywhere for long! 

La Casa de Los Suenos

  The house of our dreams! Well actually, thats not really a true statement because we didn't even dare to dream this big! We just moved into our new home (until November 10th) and we couldn't be happier about it! First of all, we don't have to carry everything we own on our backs or wheel it down the streets (or trails of the jungle). Secondly, we don't have to strategize when to buy food, when to cook it, and how to pack it in order to maximize our budget and minimize the amount of food we're lugging around with us.  Thirdly, THIS HOUSE IS AMAZING!!!!!!

And now, where to begin? So much has happened since we last wrote to you. We soaked up the sun in Puerto Viejo and decided to extend our stay at Rocking J's so that Shuli could spend her first night in Costa Rica at one of our favorite hostels of all time.  Shuli is an amazing - she's been one of my best friends for a couple years now, ever since we worked together in Hawaii, and after spending the last 10 days together she's one of Kirby's best friends too. So many wonderful things to say about her and her visit, including a road trip around the Nicoya peninsula, but you'll just have to wait for that because this post is about our new home!

Last night we spent our first night there, and we probably said "wow" over 1,000 times. Well,  maybe if you combined the "wow"'s with the "oooohhhhh!"'s and "aaahhh!"'s.  Here is a little peek into what you might have heard if you'd been a fly on the wall of our house last night:
Kirby: "This is OUR house!"
Katie: "We LIVE here!"
Kirby: "Oh, are you hungry? Let me just whip something up for you! What do you feel like? Let's just see what we've got in the fridge. Oh, its hard to see what we have because it's just so full of food!
Katie: "We have a fridge and it's stocked full of food for us to eat!!"
Kirby: "We have vegetables in the crisper!"
Katie: "We have 30 eggs!"
Kirby: "I put napkins in the napkin holder!"
Katie: "We have napkins in the napkin holder!!!"
Kirby: "We have paper towels on a paper towel holder!!!"
Katie: "We have a toaster! We have a blender! We have a stove! We have a bean cooker!"
Kirby: "I used our bean cooker to cook these beans!"
Katie:  "We have ice in the freezer! We have a freezer! We can cook food... and freeze it!"
Kirby: "ICE!"
Katie: "We LIVE here!"
Kirby: "We LIVE here!"

And so it went. Everything is a celebration. We are beside ourselves with joy.  Literally, it's as if we are looking down at ourselves, amazed by the simple pleasures that come with having a home. But they're even more exciting because we have been living like turtles with overstuffed shells for the past 40 days.  And even MORE exciting because our new home is so luxurious. 2 stories, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a big kitchen with all the appliances you could ask for (even a blender!!!), a cozy living room, and the piece de resistance: the upstairs balcony with the view of the volcano!  Outside of the house we have our pool, our mini-pool (we thought it was a hot tub but no, for us its just a round mini-pool) a huge lawn, a BBQ, a laundry room with 2 washers, a spinner to help dry the clothes (miraculous!!), and plenty of covered drying area, and don't forget the view of the volcano from almost every spot on the property and most windows in the house. We got lots of use out of the laundry facilities today, literally washing everything we own that is washable!

The view from our backyard - our precious laundry room and all our freshly cleaned clothes! There are even more that you can't see in this picture, plus our sleeping bags laying out by the pool. Quite the laundry day!

 As I re-read this, I feel a bit self-conscious because it sounds so boastful.  The house is just so amazing, it's really hard to downplay.  And we're so so SOOOO excited about our new home that we wanted to share our excitement with all of you!  The pool and the view of the volcano are definitely amazing, but the most important thing is that we have a safe, dry, and clean place to spend our days and nights.  Life will be very different now that we are no longer wondering about where we're going to sleep and eat.  Last night we had more important things to worry about, like how to re-distribute all the little knick-knacks so we could move a shelf upstairs for me to use as a closet.  The little white elephant is on the microwave, the cows are in the kitchen (in tribute to Kirby's mom, Mary Lou, who loves having cows in the kitchen), a little golden Christmas ornament is in one of the potted plants as a "gazing ball" type decoration, 2 frogs are on the toilet, and 3 toucans are the welcoming committee, dead center when you open the door. 

And now you may be wondering, "but how could you two, the budget travelers eating just rice and beans all the time, afford this fabulous home?" Well, it's because we are able to split the rent 3 ways instead of just 2, with our new visitor Denise, another one of my favorite people, who arrives tomorrow morning.  When I called her a couple days ago to see if she wanted to spend her Costa Rican vacation in "the dream house" with her own room, a huge bed, a pool, big kitchen, and view of the volcano from the deck, she said "go get it!" So we got it. And now here we are. Kirby is holding down the fort at the dream house, I'm in San Jose gobbling up internet time like it's chocolate, Denise is about to leave for the airport to fly down here, and by the time you read this all 3 of us might be on our balcony watching the sun set behind the volcano. The only downfall of the dream house is that there is no internet, so our blogs may continue to be a few and far between, but we we're really excited to share our journey with Shuli and more of the beautiful things we've gotten to see.

When you go home tonight, or if you are at home now, take a moment to be grateful for all that you have at your fingertips to make your life easier and more comfortable. Hot water, electricity, climate control, carpet (!), the internet, your closet, your refrigerator, your bed... it's easy to take all of these things for granted, I definitely did before moving here, but hopefully this post has helped you to see how exciting it can be just to have your own little space to call home.

Getting to The Pacuare Turtle Reserve

Arriving at the Pacuare Reserve was quite an adventure! We followed the directions we were given from the project coordinator hoping we would end up in the correct place. We took a bus from San Jose to the small town of Matina where we caught a cab that took us down a long dirt road past many banana tree farms with Dole trucks parked along the road. Bananas here are so good and plentiful. When we were in the mountains we bought a whole branch of them and they were delicious. I felt like a real monkey or a toucan eating bananas right off the branch. At the end of the dirt road we were dropped off at the canal and at first there was no dock or boat or people in sight, just Katie and I on the side of the dirt road with our bags. Upon further inspection we spotted the little dock just past a gate and two people waiting with the Pacuare motor boat to take us down the canal to the reserve. Katherine, the on-site head of the research assistants picked us up along with one of the guards and they were each polite enough to not comment on the enormity of my suitcase which gratefully did not capsize the boat. The canal was beautiful with lots of butterflies and birds overhead and we constantly kept our eyes peeled for the rare sighting of a crocodile. There is a crocodile that lives close to the reserve that they have affectionately names Rambo. Katie and I went on some night walks and always called to him but he proved to be ever elusive although we did see the glowing eyes of a couple of caymen. 

The reserve was in its last week with the turtles and we were the last volunteers to arrive. We were a little surprised at how few volunteers there actually were because upon signing up we felt lucky to have gotten spots when in reality the place was pretty dead. We were the only “Gringas” in sight and the other group of volunteers were from Spain as well as many of the research assistants. A few of the other research assistants were from England and the rest of the workers and guards were local Ticos. So we were excited to get back to speaking Spanish and practicing with native speakers! In the mountains before the reserve we were surrounded by only other Gringos and we weren’t provided much opportunity for practicing the language and we are really hoping to become more fluent by the end of our travels here in Costa Rica.

There is so much beauty here and so many animals and critters to admire. Lots of these critters being bugs, which at times can be fascinating but other times can look quite man eating. Katie is much better with the bugs than me. I shy away from them, admiring their creepiness from afar while she gets right in there and takes 30 pictures of each insect from every possible angle. The real kicker however is when I tell her there is a spider next to her or a big bug she will at times let out a girlish squeal and hop 50 ft into the air. I guess bug bravery can only go so far. To be fair I walk the trails waving a stick in front of me in order to knock any on coming spider webs out of my way and after witnessing a giant spider silently descend from the tree tops on our first night walk, I politely declined the invitation for the second night walk. Not the picture perfect jungle explorers but we try...
 

The first night we arrived there I saw a spider nearly the size of my face chilling out near my bed. Not the best placement if you ask me and surely going to give me nightmares. We try to escort it out but by the time we get back from dinner it is nowhere to be found. I have trouble sleeping that night of course, visions of spiders crawling all over my body haunting my waking dreams. I awake the next morning unharmed and begin telling Katie the woes of my dreary nights sleep when I turn and look to the corner of my bunk bed and notice a snake, nicely nestled into the corner of the bunk. I quickly flee from the bed and Katie begins rolling with laughter. Then she makes me get back in bed so she can take this picture! The timing of the whole thing was quite funny seeing as I was just describing how I would awake in the night and scan the top of the bunk for spiders with the flashlight, while the whole time there was a snake sleeping not even 2 ft  away from my head! It turned out to be a small Boa, which is not venomous (whew!), but the whole experience was eye opening and a great introduction to sleeping in and being one with the Costa Rican Jungle.  Later the next day, the spider also showed back up and this time Katie was my knight in shining armor and delicately escorted the spider out of our cabin with the use of our handy dandy tupperware. We named her Cecilia and gave her a new home in the forest where she belongs! 

Notice the snake in the upper right corner of my bunk! Yikes!!

I'm so glad he didn't try to snuggle with me!

This was all just within the our first 24 hours at the reserve so as you can see there are many exciting stories to tell about our time there and it may take us a little while to get all that we want to share about our time there out in the world on our blog. We have decided to separate our stories out and share things with you about our stay as we have time and are able to match writings to pictures. We plan on putting up another blog soon all about seeing the turtles, volunteering at the reserve, and the other exciting critters Katie saw along her night walks with our favorite guard at the reserve, Danillo. Thanks so much for reading and I hope that everyone is enjoying our stories! 

Welcome to The Pacuare Reserve!

Wisdom on the Walls (and floors and doors and tables)

Last night while I was writing our blog I noticed The 10 Indian Commandments just to the side of my keyboard and I really loved that this wisdom had been lacquered into the tabletop itself.  The travelers who have passed through Rocking J's have left parts of themselves behind through their art and their words.  I could talk for quite awhile about each piece, but I'll just let them speak for themselves.  There is some really good stuff here - enjoy. 

Translation: Always free, always living!

Translation: To share is to live

The Toilet Bowl

Rocking J's: Hostel/Mosaic museum!

Free bananas, too!!

It’s been so long since we’ve blasted anything out to you all, it’s hard to know where to start. Not where we left off, because that is so far in the past by now and we know you want up to the minute breaking news!  So here’s what’s going on right now: Monday night, September 27th, in Costa Rica. Here in Puerto Viejo it’s raining up a storm, literally, with plenty of lightning and thunder.  Earlier it actually looked like the special effects from an old horror movie, it was so over the top.  We’re able to just sit back and enjoy the show, all warm and dry under the huge roof here at our new hostel: Rocking J’s.  By far the biggest hostel we’ve stayed at, Rocking J’s is more of an estate than a hostel, with a good sized lawn and hammock hangout area in the center, bordered on 3 sides by the lodgings and common areas and opening out onto the ocean. $4 hammocks and $5 tents are the most popular options; Kirby and I chose the tent. The whole place is covered in mosaics and paintings created by travelers who have stayed here over the years, and it’s so beautiful that you could literally spend hours looking at all the beautiful details. So much color and visual stimuli everywhere, it’s the total opposite of the hostel we were in last night, which brings me to the title of today’s blog: the toilet bowl.

Notice the aquamarine urinal cake on the wall above the fan - the only thing on the wall!

 That’s what we called our room at the sunset hostel.  Because of the smell. Right when we walked in the door yesterday I told Kirby I thought it smelled a little like pee in our room, but then we realized that what it smelled like was the men’s bathroom.  That’s because of the urinal cake that was hanging on our wall.  The only decoration in our barren white room was the little aqua green “freshener” that smelled mysteriously like the unmistakable bathroom deodorizer.  Check it out in the corner of this picture. The white but semi-stained walls, the urinal cake, and all our “stuff” swirling around the room made the nickname of “toilet bowl” the obvious choice.  We knew we had to get out as soon as possible, especially since the smell started morphing and taking on new and unidentifiable characteristics.  This morning we toured the hostels in the surrounding area and now here we are at the most rocking place in town!  Sorry if our description of the toilet bowl was too graphic for some of you, but we want to paint a very clear picture of our experience here in Costa Rica: the good, the bad, and the stinky!

Today, after moving in to our new hostel, we immediately took advantage of the wifi internet and made a HUGE batch of rice and beans, which Kirby magically turned into vegetarian burritos by adding flour tortillas, salsa, onions, a little frying, a whole lot of love!We went down to the beach on the backside of the hostel and discovered little turtles in the sand, one of which I’m laying on in this picture.

Puerto Viejo has these little turtles all over the place, on the side of streets and at the beaches. It would be fun to stay here for a while and try to find them all. After settling in at our new home, we headed out to the nearby beach down the road. It was relaxing and inspiring, and while swimming in the warm ocean waves we couldn’t help but burst into song!  This beach was especially inspirational for songwriting, and we’re almost done with our newest hit track: “It’s SOOOOO Hard Livin’ in Paradise!” I've included a picture of us on the beach just after our songwriting session, so when you hear it on the radio waves you'll feel extra VIP!

Interactive Moth Madness

Here they are, some of our favorite moths.  We hope you enjoy the details and beauty that mother nature bestowed upon each and every one. There are hundreds more where these came from, but we didn't want to overwhelm you! These moths have captured our hearts and we thought that you would find them intriguing as well, so we decided to make them the subject of our next interactive blog. So here is your mission: rank these moths in order of size, starting with the smallest and ending with the largest, or just let us know which one you think is the biggest! We've numbered and named them to make things easier, but please keep in mind that these names are a result of our imagination and have no scientific relevance whatsoever. Enjoy their beauty and good luck in determining their size!

1: Teddy Bear Warrior

2: Yellow Fringe-Bottomed Moth

3: The Brown Eyed Pig

4: White Stealth

5: Mr. Moleface

6: The Emerald Princess

7: Mr. Smith

8: The Magical Emperor