Trees

Oops there goes
another rubber tree plant.

-Frank Sinatra

One of the fascinating things in Costa Rica is how large the plants grow. Things that are bushes in Canada are trees there, and Canadian houseplants are as big as houses.

On a wander through the rain forest near Arenal, the guide was telling us about tree species and about their uses. This is Guanacaste – it is used in making furniture. This is Melina, also used for furniture. He also pointed out a cedar tree, slightly larger than anything I’ve seen before. So large, that the top was out of sight in the canopy, and we could not identify it without his help.

(It is actually pictured in an earlier post)

As we came around a corner, he asked if anybody recognized a tree just off the trail. It turned out to be a rubber tree, used as he suggested for gloves and condoms. He cut the bark with a pocket knife and a white milky liquid poured forth. The girl with the touch everything finger immediately got the finger coated in the substance to let it dry into a souvenir. Suddenly remembering to look BEFORE leaping, and after putting it on her hand, she asked if raw rubber was safe to put it on her hand.

“Oh yes”, replied the guide. “In some countries, they make gloves by having workers put their hands in the liquid, then holding them up until it dries. After a couple coats, they simply peel off the new gloves and put them aside for packaging”.

“Hmmm”, says she. “I wonder how they make condoms?”

Which way does the water go?

Pretty well all our lives we’ve known about the Coriolis Effect. I remember learning in high school that the water in a sink or toilet will spin counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere, due to the earth’s rotation. If you are standing on the equator, you are moving at about 1670 kph, but standing on either pole you are not moving at all. This difference in speed causes hurricanes to rotate as mentioned above.

Being a good student (no comments please) in those days, I took this as fact, and sure enough, every sink or toilet I encountered followed this rule. There is even a Simpson’s episode, where they visit Australia, and the US embassy has a giant machine to make the water in the toilets spin the “proper” way.

So imagine my surprise when I encountered toilets in Central America that had whirling vortexes going in opposite directions. Not only that, they were designed to accelerate the spin by injecting water at an angle to speed up the vortex – in opposite directions!

Another mystery for the great science sleuth to unravel… was it because this close to the equator the spin forces are smaller? They do after all reverse direction less than 10 degrees away, and they must go through zero at that point, and one would think they get weaker as you approach the equator. Costa Rica buys toilets from the lowest bidder. I saw several stamped made in Argentina or made in Chile and a few made in Mexico or even made in USA, so would the designs from the two hemispheres, obviously built to reinforce the natural spin that the designer saw every day, be able to overcome the Coriolis effect in it’s weakened state? How strong was this force anyway?

Off to the world’s biggest library – the Internet – to answer my latest quest for knowledge! (Anything to avoid starting my taxes). And then depression set in. It seems my teachers lied to me! According to pretty much every site I found on the first search, the Coriolis effect is too weak to have any impact on a spinning vortex the size of a drain pipe – even a four inch-er. The spin is purely imparted by the geometry of the sink or toilet, and has nothing to do with the rotation of the earth.

Hmmm… Who to believe now? A quick check around the house shows all my sinks and toilets create counter clockwise vortexes the way God and my high school teachers intended. Could the information on the web be wrong? Could it be contradictory? On the web? Come on…

More searching. More opinions. It does have an impact. It does not. More proofs. Maybe we should do a survey – which direction does the vortex spin in your sink? You have to plug it, fill it, let it stand for a while, then pull the plug. We could publish our own paper!

They say travel forces you to re-examine your basic beliefs about how the world works, but I never thought this would extend to plumbing and basic science learned over 40 years ago!

These things don’t change. Next you’ll be telling me there are more than 103 elements in the periodic table.

The past couple days

Have been a bit of reverse culture shock – coming back into larger centers feels a bit more like home, but with customs, traditions and food just a bit different from both home and Cahuita. La Fortuna is pretty touristy. It was a farming town, population under 100 when the volcano erupted the first time about 40 years ago. Now it is tourist central with a population approaching 3000, and over 90 % of the local industry centered on tourism. Prices and menus reflect this. So do the noises and lights. Choosing 3 days here was a tactical error – at our age, there are enough cool things to do for maybe 1-2 days, but we’ve spent a lot of the extra time lounging about and resting so it was probably the right thing to do.

New things I’ve (re)discovered…

Just because you’ve seen a picture of something and can interpret it’s name, does not mean you’ve got it right. For example, if you order a hamburger here, as in most of Costa Rica, it comes with ham and burger on the bun. If you order a cheeseburger, it comes with cheese and burger – no ham of course. Chicken fajitas are chicken strips, and pizza sauce does not have garlic in it, which is another reason for me to spend more time in this country.

Shorts are for tourists. Ticos wear long pants and consider shorts just a little disrespectful, unless you’re at the beach. However, like most places, you can break the rules with money – the guy in shorts might end up paying a bit more for his lunch or his souvenir.

The mountains mean coffee – fresh wonderful coffee both hot and in iced drinks. I’ve spent the last 2 years trying to reduce my caffeine addiction, the last 2 months building it back, and the last 2 days putting it over the top. Oh well, I can start again next week.



In a couple hours we get on the bus for the last leg of the journey to a hotel near the airport. Tomorrow we fly and arrive home quite late, to be picked up by our son at the airport.
YOU DID REMEMBER WEDNESDAY IS THE DAY, RIGHT SON?

Going back over our notes and pictures, I realize there are a huge number of stories that never made it into the blog. Perhaps we’ll keep this up for awhile – they won’t be in chronological order, but the reading will still be fun – what do you think?

Hunting for Lava!

The Other side of the mountain

Sure there’s a volcano out there!

Last night’s tour was wonderful. It was a bus tour to the west side of Arenal to see a lava flow. We drove down the bumpiest road in all of Costa Rica. We’ve been on many terrible roads, in taxis with people piled two high, so stating that we’ve found “the bumpiest road” is really saying something. Our tour guide called the experience “ A Costa Rican Massage”.

We learned lots of interesting facts about the volcanic activity in the area. We saw huge impact craters created when Arenal spewed forth it’s deadly vomit of rock and ash. Some of the craters still had a rock right in the middle. The original eruption that changed what was known as the lovely mountain where people camped and fished, where two villages were situated, into a deadly volcano happened in 1968. The week before it blew people in the area were confused by the fact that the river was getting hotter everyday.

Arenal still rumbles and burbles out chunks of rocks everyday, some the size of a house. I guess this is what makes it relatively safe to be around. The pressure is released everyday and as long as it continues to vent it won’t explode. (Boy do I know that feeling!) The cloud cover was very low last night and we weren’t able to see the volcano from where we were let alone any lava flowing, so off we went to the hot springs at Bali.

Bali was wonderful. There were many pools with water ranging in temperature from 39 degrees Celsius to 65 degrees. We couldn’t fine the 65 degree pool, but were happy in the ones we did find. The warmest we could find was 49 degrees. Some of the pools had Jacuzzis in them and some were quiet floating places with fragrant tropical flowers planted around them. There were bars in pools, cool pools inside of warm pools, places to lounge and many trails to walk. Really lovely.

One sad thing happened though. After spending 2 hours floating in this hot pool or that, I found out that my really amazing tan isn’t so amazing any more. Turns out I wasn’t really tanned, just really dirty. Oh well…..

We still haven’t seen the top of Arenal, and probably won’t. It is now the rainy season and it rains pretty much every day. Sometimes we are lucky enough to see the base of the mountain, but we never see the top. I’m not sure there’s a volcano there at all. I wonder how they hide the fact that there is no volcano during the dry season? Smoke and mirrors, I guess!

Two more sleep and we’ll be home! See you soon.

The base of a little cedar tree

Sleeping with rumbles

View of the volcano from our hotel

Well it’s Sunday afternoon and we’ve had a busy couple of days. We left Cahuita at 10:30. We decided to try the Interbus Service that travels from hotel to hotel in Cost Rica. It was excellent. The bus arrived half and hour early and we were off to La Fortuna. We arrived at our hotel at four o’clock, which gave us lots of time to explore the town.

Man talk about culture shock. We’ve gotten used to the dark jungle full of weird animal noises. Now we are staying in a brightly lit hotel and although there are still lots of weird noises, they are mostly human, with an occasional rumble from the volcano. It’s hard to sleep with all of the light.

Yesterday we mostly explored the city. We poked in shops and went out to supper and planned our assault of the volcano. Supper was at a great open aired restaurant. The roof was cone shaped and thatched. Inside there were flags hanging from many different countries in the world. We were sitting under Austria and next to Hungary. After a while four Germans came in and started looking at the flags and joking around. They were making smart alecky comments about the Hungarian flag so I turned to them and said in German, “Careful now. I’m from Hungary.” We all laughed and it was a good joke, but they talked a lot quieter from then on. Hahaha There are quite a lot of German people here in Costa Rica and it’s been fun eaves dropping.

By the way, someone had stolen the Canadian flag. Who would do such a thing? I hope it wasn’t a Canadian. Imagine being dumb enough to steal your own country’s flag? You can buy those at home you know! Why not steal a Costa Rican flag, or any of the other flags and tell your friends you’ve just come back from a world tour. Do not steal your own country’s flag!

Bridge Swingers

Today we are taking lots of tours. This morning we went to the hanging bridges, rainforest tour. Oh man it was wonderful. We saw tarantulas, red poison dart frogs, birds that make their nests inside of walls of mud. Our guide was really good and knew which hole to shine his flash light into to see a bird or bug. Charles wouldn’t let me touch anything. Sigh…. ( I did manage to dip my finger in rubber tree sap.) We saw waterfalls, Arenal (the volcano), and we looked down through the tops of the trees to the valleys down below. Amazing place, the rainforest. Rain one moment, and sunshine the next steam rising from everywhere. Beautiful!

Bridge we crossed at the top, waterfall below.

Another view of the bridges

Poison Dart Frog

This evening we are going to a hot springs spa called Balli for supper and another tour. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll let you know how it turns out. Any chance there'll be snakes?

Last Days

It’s our last morning in Cahuita and it’s raining. It’s been raining for the last 36 hours, actually, with a few periods of almost but not quite stopping. The overcast skies and the rattle of water on tin roofs complements the melancholy feelings we have about leaving.

Yesterday we wandered the town saying goodbye to friends, waving to or chatting with dozens of acquaintances, and rocking out for a few minutes with the kids at the center, to some tunes on the laptop.

We visited favorite places, like Dianne’s office, the school, the computer center, and Willy’s internet café where we spent time chatting with new friends in person and old friends online. And we found time for discussion and introspection, as well as trying to capture what we’ve learned (or re-learned as the case may be).

There are too many things to list, but the top five things, I think, are as follows:

1) Being part of a community is a good thing – working together always makes us stronger, the load lighter, and friends always make us happier.

2) It’s nice to walk down a street and be greeted by faces you know. Small towns and villages hold a truth the cities have forgotten.

3) It’s hard to be happy when you’re hungry – and hunger can extend beyond food to include knowledge or a sense of purpose.

4) Deadlines are arbitrary and seldom necessary. There is a huge difference between being lazy and taking time to smell the flowers or chat with a friend – but all of these can make you late.

5) Having said that, respect other people’s time. None of us knows how much of it we really have.

And so closes this chapter of the blog.

We’ve come to believe in this work and will continue to help in some fashion when we get home. I suspect we’ll be back – I think there is something in the insect bites that creates a longing for Caribbean shores.

This afternoon we’ll journey through the mountains, and sleep tonight beside an active volcano. Nothing like a new adventure to lift the spirits! Stay tuned….

Bean there - Cooked that!

Today there was a rice and beans fund raising lunch for the school in Cahuita. Ernesto invited me to come and see the “proper” way to cook rice and beans. He’s been teasing me since I’m so eager to learn how to cook Costa Rican dishes, and I was ready to watch and learn at eight o’clock this morning.We decided to be on time this morning even though we know that in Costa Rica, eight o’clock means sometime after eight, so we weren’t really surprised when no one was actually there. We went off to the internet café for a half hour.

Cafeteria - 8:00 AM

When we got back Ernesto was busy chopping up coconuts. (It turned out that there was lots of work to do but not many people so I spent the morning chopping and frying and stirring. It was great fun.) We took the coconut meat and chopped it into small cubes. Then Roxanna placed the meat into a blender with some water and processed it into coconut milk. Very cool.
The beans and rice were cooked together in the coconut milk and herbs and spices and finely chopped veggies. There was a pasta salad made with fresh veggies and mayonnaise made with fresh lemons from the tree. There was chicken fried and then cooked in a coconut sauce as well.

Very yummy. Dinner party at my house when we get back!!! (Of course it’s gonna cost you as we’re still trying to raise 7 months back rent for the computer center!)

One of the veggies I was chopping was celery. I chopped about 2 stalks and then asked is this was good. Arlene said maybe a bit more. Now I meant was it chopped fine enough because we had been talking about that earlier, but she meant more celery not more chopping. So I chopped my celery finer and asked again. She said a bit more, so I kept chopping. Finally I stopped because I had all but pulverized that celery and she was looking at me funny. I asked if she wanted anything else chopped and she handed me a couple more stalks of celery. I started chopping and then I realized what had happened. I asked her if she meant chop more celery not chop the celery more finely. She smiled and said yes. Well we both started to laugh. She must of thought I was right nuts turning the celery into dust. Hahahha.

It was fun to watch the people working together. The women all decided that each of them was a better cook than the other women there. They all felt that men don’t know how to cook. They re-spiced the marinade that the chicken was in when no one was looking, and made “men tinking dey can cook” noises behind their backs. It was a hoot!

The guy frying the chicken built a fire and set a huge cast iron pot on it and dumped in some oil. (So far so good.) Then he decided to score the chicken before he fried it. Now this worked well enough for the white meat, but the cut tendons on the drumsticks curled up and the meat shrank as the pieces were fried and it looked like someone had already eaten parts of the drumstick.

Loud, Spanish, talking ensued. Frying guy left without telling anyone, chicken frying away unattended. Luckily Arlene decided to check on the chicken, and rescued it before it was totally black. We pulled it out of the pan and fried up the rest. Then we took the frying pot off of the flames and put the sauce cooking pot on. Once the sauce was boiling then we threw in the chicken and let it cook for a while.In the end everything turned out really delicious.

New Fryers

In Canada the meal would have been a social occasion, with much chatting and nibbling, but here a fundraising lunch means low cost food to support a cause. Food was packed in take out containers and people took their lunches home. Best day ever!

A guard waiting hopefully for the chicken to be dropped.

Scrub-a-dub-dub - An old broad and a tub...

Many of you have asked how we do our laundry. Behind our cabana is a laundry area. Many of the tico houses have the same set up, although some of them also have washer/spin dryers. We don’t.

The sink has three sections and is higher in the front so that it drains to the back. None of them have plugs, so you just push a piece of clothing in front of the drain and let the water run. The middle section is deeper, and the two sinks on the side are quite shallow, more like a draining shelf, really. I fill the middle section with soap and water and wash out our things, and then toss them over to another, less deep section. Then I repeat the process only this time I rinse. Lastly I wring the clothing out by hand and hang them up. It takes them almost no time to dry in the heat and sunshine.



We’ve had a young lady doing most of our laundry for us. We’ve had a few snags though. Sometimes it comes back the next day and sometimes not for almost a week. This is particularly funny because we can see from our cabin that she washes it as soon as she gets it. We watch it dry on the line. Then it disappears for several days and then comes back home to us. It amuses me that our laundry also is on vacation in Costa Rica.

She also has a habit of bleaching everything to within an inch of it’s life, so we’ve just sent things to her that we don’t mind losing or being ruined. The rest, like Charles’ shirts or towels and clothing that I’ve bought as souvenirs, I simply wash myself. It doesn’t really take that long.



This week I’ve washed everything myself just to be on the safe side. We are leaving for La Fortuna the day after tomorrow and we thought we’d like to take our underwear with us. Hahaha.

Me and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Mmmmmm

We’ve been here a while and in our travels have noticed this place called Cocoa Trails. It’s not too far from Cahuita, and we’ve been tempted to take the bus there and look around. Today we got up our nerve and got a bus ticket to Hone Creek, the next stop after the Chocolate place, and off we went. (Charles was in charge of the bug spray and camera. He forgot both. Sigh….)

Well, we thought it was a cocoa plantation, and chocolate processing place, but it’s more of a working museum. There was so much more than just chocolate there. We arrived a little after nine and were the first ones there, so we had a tour guide all to ourselves.

The first part of the tour took us through gardens of medicinal plants. Our guide picked leaves and roots and we smelled and tasted and touched wondrous things. My touch everything finger had never been happier. Next we saw various types of orchids, including the kind that gives us vanilla. Very cool! Then we went through the jungle and saw flowering plants and trees, touching and smelling all the way. Next we were shown different types of banana trees, some that produced 500 and some that grew a thousand bananas each. Wow! We saw huge bamboo growths, and a sugar cane crusher, tasted the juice and chewed on the cane. By about this point my hands were red and yellow and smelled of ginger, lemon grass, cinnamon, and more herbs than I can count. Could things get any better?

We toured a Bribri Shaman hut. It is actually used a couple times a year for special ceremonies. This was amazing. The construction was roundish and completely covered in palm fronds. This type of palm roof keeps the inside dry for over 10 years. We saw all of the implements used by the shaman. There was a tiny little sweat tent inside that the shaman might put you in and keep adding steam and herbs until you were better. That might take up 2 days! I asked, “What if you had to go to the bathroom?” No one knew.

Finally we arrived at the cocoa museum place. We were shown how the beans were dried and we were shown all of the old equipment used in the past. Our guide picked a cocoa pod and we got to eat the fruit, which grows around the bean inside the pod. It’s quite sweet and yummy. Next we made chocolate!!!! One of our guides roasted the beans over a fire for about 15 minutes until they made popping sounds. Then we rubbed the beans to get the skin off. Man the smell was unbelievable. Next we ground the beans and mixed it with raw sugar cane, powdered milk, vanilla, a bit of condensed milk and a bit of water. This mixture was stirred, kneaded, squished flat and then eaten. Oh my, it is like nothing I’ve ever eaten. It barely resembles the stuff we call chocolate. Oh it was so good. It took Charlie and three hefty guides to drag me away from the chocolate place, but alas our tour was over. Best two hours ever!

When we got back to the cafeteria place, the manager asked us if we were thinking about staying for lunch. We said that we were. Well lunch wasn’t for an hour, it turned out that they were making a promotional DVD and were wondering if we would take the tour again and be filmed as tourists. After we did that they would feed us lunch. (I’m ready for my close up Mr. DeMill!) Well sure, why ever not, we thought and off we went again. Once more we were picking leaves and smelling plants and hearing about all the medicinal, herbal, and ornamental plants. We were told that our voices wouldn’t be heard, so we started making up new names for things. We were told to point into the bushes and pretend that there was an animal there, so we were telling the guides about the animal in the bushes, native to Canada that we had brought to Costa Rica to breed here and take over the jungle. The best part, however???????? We got to make chocolate again!!! Woo Hoo!!!

After what turned out to be another two hour tour, they gave us a free lunch and thanked us for all of out help. They then took out name and address, and promised to mail us a copy of the DVD when it was done. Very cool!

We had one part of our adventure left. We had taken the bus to get here. That meant purchasing a ticket to Hone Creek and then pulling the bell when we saw the chocolate place, but how to get home? There was a bus stop not far from where we were, but we had never gotten a bus from a stop in the middle of nowhere before. We were a bit nervous and after about 15 minute a guy who must have recognized us pulled up and asked if we wanted a taxi back to Cahuita, only 3000 colones. This wasn’t one of the official red taxies with a yellow triangle that we’ve been warned to take, but one of the unofficial ones that, well, actually, we’ve had some experience with. This one was special because it had all of it’s doors. Impressive, but Charles was determined to take the bus, only 660 colones. Ten minutes later, along came the bus. It stopped for us and we were off to Cahuita, happy as can be, with Charles grinning from ear to ear. Soon we were back at home, tired and full of home made chocolate, and a free lunch!

We had such a wonderful day! I’d love to show you the pictures but, well, someone (No names….Charles) forgot the camera!

Tortuguero Adventure

One of the places I wanted to visit in Costa Rica is Tortuguero. If you’ve heard of it, it was likely because you watched a Discovery channel or National Geographic special, as this is the stretch of coast where the great sea turtles and the giant leatherback turtles come to lay their eggs by night. The computer center has a school installation here, but it seems to be running fine so we went as touristas for the weekend. Here's the "Turtle Beach".



While turtles are cool, I was less interested in sitting on a beach at midnight hoping to see a turtle (it’s not the right season anyway), than I was in seeing some of Tortuguero National Park, and the town of Tortuguero itself. And getting there is, in this case, over half the fun. You see, there are no roads to get there, and none when you arrive. Instead, you travel by water – over 80 km through a series of canals, rivers, swamps, narrow passages completely covered by canopy, and spots so shallow that occasionally people have to get out and push the boat over a sand bar. Given the sorts of critters that live in the murky waters, I was not too excited by this last part, but all in all, the rest sounded pretty good, so off we went.

It’s funny how a scene will trigger a memory of a song, and then the song will run around your head for a few minutes, or hours, or days. Dianne saw this





And had the theme from Gilligan’s Island in her head until we got home. The actual boat was only slightly better, pictured here.




It had a sort of “African Queen” look about it, and I half expected Humphrey Bogart to be driving, but it turns out the actual driver was far more personable, and had an excellent eye for critters, so he would stop the boat for people to take pictures if something interesting was sitting on the shore.

I saw this fellow on a sand bar, and then had Gerry Reed’s “Amos Moses” stuck in my head for the weekend. (We really need to update our music collection)



The town of Tortuguero has electricity, water, and even an internet café, but it has no streets since there are no vehicles. Instead there are paths – a wide main one with the entrance to the National Park at one end and the turtle research facility on the other, and several shops, restaurants, bed & breakfast places, etc., in between. An open area in the center of town serves as a park, with this rusting collection of machinery attempting to serve as a reminder of the challenges of building the canals.


For us, though, the highlight of the trip was an early morning canoe trip into the park with Castor Hunter. He’s a guide with a lot of experience and the most amazing ability to pick out birds and animals that we would have paddled by - never knowing they existed.

His canoe is a little larger than ours, seating maybe 8 people, but he paddled it comfortably and we got to watch in amazement as we wandered through twists and turns, each corner exposing new plants and animals and birds, too numerous to list. Considering he had lead a group turtle watching to all hours of the night (it’s illegal to be on the beach without a guide after dark), and we started out at 5:45 AM, he did an amazing job.

We were back in time to grab our stuff, a little food, and the 10:00 AM boat back to Moin. From there, a taxi to Limon, and the bus to Cahuita – and we were back at the cabina to shower and nurse sore butts after 12 hours of mostly sitting on less than comfortable seats of one kind or another. Then we were off to dinner to discuss which incidents will provide blog fodder for the next couple days.

It’s good to be back – chatting with a half dozen folks on our walk from the bus station, and giving directions to some confused tourists that looked as overwhelmed as we were just a few short weeks ago. We are heading into our last week here, and it’s going to be tough to leave.

Here are a few shots from our early morning paddle with Castor:

Charlie's Turn...

I realized this morning that I have not written about the computer center for a while.

Blogs should be exciting, and we are having plenty of (mis)adventures so there is no lack of material to pull from. The center is doing excellent work, but is likely only exciting to geeks and old Scouters like me. Still, the center is why I’m here, and it fills my days with interesting work, opportunities to meet fascinating people, make new friends, and hopefully make a small contribution to this community that we’ve come to feel a part of.


The building consists of three rooms – a storage area at the extreme left, a small room in the center that serves as an office, a small class room, and soon to be an internet café, (we got the phone reconnected yesterday – can DSL be far behind?) and a large room on the right with 21 networked student computers, an instructor machine, an ancient LCD projector, and a white board.In the time I’ve been here, the center has gone from looking like this most of the time,

to looking like this most of the time.

I know my contribution in this regard is simply being a warm body with the keys to the classroom that happens to be around most of the time, nevertheless it’s nice to see. The kids in the picture are playing games during their equivalent to recess, and head for the center on bikes or on foot whenever they get a break from school.

The plan is simple. Get them interested in computers with games, work with teachers to give them assignments that require looking up information either in Encarta or online, and then fill the gaps with some basic training – either formal or informal like my OLPC session pictured here.

When the interest grows beyond that, offer courses from basic skills to advanced skills.Game console emulators with Mario Brothers and PacMan are getting old, so I have a couple people searching for some simple educational games for the younger kids, and more complex puzzle, mystery, or role playing games for the older kids. It’s hard to find stuff that is not “first person shooter” style or crime based like “grand theft auto” (which I understand is a potential career path here)Adults use the center too, and there are now 2 computer skills courses running on Fridays and Sundays.

We hope to begin offering some evening courses as well shortly, so that people in the outlying areas can get there too, as soon as we can find some funding for instructors. With an annual wage of about $5000 per full time employee, this should be simple, but as usual finding money is a challenge. Beyond salaries, we are hoping the internet café will earn enough to cover utilities costs, so that leaves rent on the center building to find. I met the owner this week – a pleasant lady that believes in the center and is therefore patient, and only charges a minimal amount. Still, it’s another $171 to find each month.

I’m attending a meeting with a potential sponsor next week that could provide about 30% of the required staff funding – so I’ll have to try to remember how to be a project manager and present a customer proposal. The local guys on the ground here are excellent and dedicated, and clearly are in the driver’s seat. I think demonstrating a North American connection will help convince this potential funder that the project is real and worthwhile. I came here with my usual skepticism, but I’ve become convinced over the last couple months. Here’s hoping it goes well!

The soon to be "Internet Cafe"

O.K. – if you’ve been patient enough to read this far, I have an adventure story as a reward. For some reason, it’s a Dianne story – I’m not sure why.

The girl with the touch everything finger is not always aware of what she is about to touch. By way of example, we wandered down to the park entrance last week to see the moon on the ocean. She leaned against a picnic table without looking and put her hand on a beetle that was just slightly larger than my fist.

After she got clean underwear, I was pretty sure she had learned the lesson – there are things here that can kill you if you accidentally lean on the wrong tree, grab the wrong hanging vine, or poke your finger into a coconut hole. The beetle was a big sleepy leaf eater, but next time he might not be.

In her defense, while we both know this intellectually, it is not second nature for us, simply because we did not grow up where this is a concern, and it’s easy to forget to look where you are putting your hand. As the narrator of this story, I don’t have to tell you about my bonehead moves, so of course there are none. :-)

Yesterday she decided to clean a stain in the sink, by putting Javex on it and letting it soak for a couple hours. The Javex bottle has been sitting in the back corner of the counter untouched for a few weeks. Without looking, she picked up the bottle and proceeded to pour it on the stain, when this fine fellow ran across her fingers.

She jumped, he jumped, and he landed in a pool of Javex , which made short work of him.

The picture has the gallon bottle in it for size reference – if you need another reference, he was larger than my coffee mug and would have some of his legs hanging over the edges. Suffice it to say the Javex will likely be needed on another pair of underwear.

I’m not sure, but I think I saw her in the internet café on the Air Canada website. C’mon Honey, it’s only another week or two….

Old and New Adventures

Just a few tidbits that I forgot to mention.

Snorkeling

I wanted to tell you about our snorkeling adventure. Marilyn and Eugene and I decided we’d go out snorkeling one day when Charles was busy. We put on our bathing suits and headed off to town. We stopped at one of the many places that have a sign offering snorkeling. We asked the fellow when could he take us out and he said right now. So our new friend Ronald loaded up his pull cart with a motor, life jackets, gas cans, snorkeling stuff and such and off we went. He pulled the cart to the place where the boats are beached and he put his stuff beside a really nice, large boat. It looked very sea worthy. Then he moved to the boat beside it, which was much smaller. Hmmm! Oh well, I thought, at least we aren’t taking that dinky boat next to it. He then proceeded to unchain the dinky little boat next to it. Sigh!

Ronald got the boat ready and off we went. The ocean was pretty calm for the most part, and it was really interesting watching Ronald steer the boat. We changed direction several times to get to the reef, but we were always heading into the waves. He was really good at what he does. It. was a great time and I could have stayed out there all day.

Restaurant stuff!!

We had dinner at Miss Edith’s a couple of nights ago. Charles had smoked chicken in a Caribbean peanut sauce. I had a Rondon stew. People here call it rundown stew. It was a whole fish with root veggies, stewed in coconut milk, totally unrecognizable root veggies, except for the carrots. Man was it good.

Last night we went to a place called Sambal. We pass it everyday, and it almost never has anybody in it. It always looks quite pretty with chairs painted black and white safari style. It was amazing! I had Pad Thai and Charles had Teriyaki chicken, both done in a Caribbean style. It was really good food; pricey for here, not for Canada, but for Cahuita. Maybe that’s why it’s often empty. Too bad because the food was good and the service was amazing, and I got to eat supper with a cat on my lap. (The restaurant had a cat, which oddly enough matched the chairs. A camouflage-cat… something new every day)

Off on an adventure

Our favorite restaurant of all, however, is Caribbean Roots. I’ve mentioned my friend Zoraida who made us order in Spanish. She’s so sweet. She speaks no Engish at all. I asked her if I could speak to the chef. He speaks English really well, and I was hoping he would show me how to make my favorite dish, cassado con pollo so that I could show my friends back home. Well he wasn’t there and using my pitiful Spanish, my dictionary and waving my arms in what I felt was a totally understandable fashion, I explained this to Zoraida. She told me that she would be happy to show me and invited me to her house in the next village. Now I was panicking because I was afraid to go off to another village by myself and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and I really didn’t know what to do. So I told her I’d be right back with an interpreter.

I went looking for Ernesto. I found him walking toward the computer center. I told him I needed his help and I turned him back towards town. “What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?” he asked. Now I have to ask, why does everyone who knows me for more than five minutes assume I’ve gotten myself in some kind of trouble? Humph!

I took him back to the restaurant and the three of us came up with a plan. She wanted me to go with her to Limon to buy the ingredients. That kinda scared me. I can’t imagine going that far in a strange country without Charles. Ernesto told her and she said not to worry she’d buy the stuff and I could pay her tomorrow. That’s really wonderful, but today I’m wishing that I had gone to Limon with her last night. Honestly I’m such a chicken!

So….. today…. I’m taking a taxi to Zoraida’s house in Puerto Vargas and she’s going to show me how to make cassado con pollo. Then I am taking a taxi back with Charles’ supper. Oh boy. I can’t wait. Best day ever!

Flying away....

Company’s Gone :-(

Well Marilyn and Eugene are on their way home. We had a busy day today. We went into town this morning to pick up a few more souvenirs before they left, and then at 11 their ride was here. We had a really great time showing them our little piece of paradise. Buen viaje mi amigos! Que Dios te acompane!

Charles and I have had a quiet day. We went into town around one to get some lunch and to check out some other places to stay. We were thinking it might be nice to stay along the ocean for a few days. We are also trying to figure out when we are going to leave Cahuita. We were going to leave on the 15th and then head toward La Fortuna. From there we can visit the volcanoes and hot springs. We have found a tour guy who will take us to Tortuguero National Park, where the sea turtles go to lay their eggs, then to La Fortuna, and back for only $80. That’s a good deal so we might stay here longer and use Cahuita as our base. Decisions, decisions!

Tomorrow Charles will be at the computer center, and I’ll be back at the office. In the afternoon I hope to do some painting. We have come to be friends with the people who run the Caribbean Roots Restaurant and I wanted to leave my friend, Zoraida, a picture. It is by far the best restaurant in town. Everything is fresh and delicious. I am hoping to get my nerve up to ask the chef to teach me how to make his wonderful food in exchange for washing dishes or waitressing or something. I know none of you will believe this, but I can be very shy sometimes. (Ya ya ya don’t even bother to make comments about that!)

Well I have to go now. I have a lot of nothing to do this evening and I should get started on it. AND…..I get to go to bed early tonight. Marilyn kept making me stay up till 7:30. Man! What’s up with that? I’m going to bed at six, Mer, and you can’t stop me! Na na na na boo boo!

Here are a few pictures of the sloth outside of our back door again. He was climbing from tree to tree, eating. We called Charles to come see, but the sloth was gone by the time he got there. Turns out the sloth was faster than Charlie…..enough said! Ha ha ha.

The speedy sloth makes a get away

Charlie’s view

What can I add? Well, what can I add that will stay posted – I should have restricted her account when I had the chance :-)

I continue to be fascinated with this place.

I love the bus (I admit it’s an acquired taste like smoked cheddar or Islay scotch) especially for it’s opportunities to people watch. Despite the heat, crowding, dust and noise, chivalry is alive and well in Costa Rica as hard won seats are given up regularly to the elderly or pregnant, or anyone that seems to need it more. Someone a little low on money will sing for a few kilometers, or tell a long story of hardship and then pass a hat and get a handful of coins. Life’s dramas unfold as we bounce along past some of the most amazing scenery I’ve ever encountered.

I love the plants. Not a day passes that I don’t see something amazing that I’ve never seen before. Earlier this week, one of the children at the center brought some reddish fruit about the size of an egg that had a wiry burr-like outer coating. He showed me how to twist it and have the cover pop off to expose a while fruit inside – and I tasted lichee fruit picked less than an hour ago for the first time. The next day, one of Dianne’s friends gave her a small roasted fruit of some kind called pejibaye, that has a flavour somewhere between a squash and a chestnut.

I love the animals. We’re going to miss the howler money serenade and the sloths in the lemon tree.

And I love the birds. Tonight, for instance, while chatting before supper, I looked up and spotted a toucan in a tree just a couple meters in front of the porch. We have one on our beach towel, but have not seen one live in all the time we’ve been here, yet there he was. Soon we discovered there were two of them and scrambled for the camera. Passing it back and forth as each of us found another shot, we followed them as they flew around the yard. They quickly moved up into the trees and were very shy, so most of our shots were pretty far, but we did get one I’m happy enough with to include here.

Hmmmm… why do I feel like fruit loops for breakfast tomorrow?

Toucan Sam

A busy week

We’ve been a bit lax about our blogging this week. My time is growing shorter at the center so that I have to start choosing what to finish, and we’ve been spending time with our guests, revisiting favorite experiences or having new ones – including doing some tourista things. There’s been snorkeling on the coral reef, hikes in the jungle, and a significant amount of beach and restaurant time.

One of the coolest things we did this week was a visit to a Bribri village, followed by a hike to a waterfall back in the jungle for a swim. Several pictures are included here, including Dianne getting to know a turtle. You can see how impressed our guide was by the look on his face.

The village seems to be a communal farm with a couple buildings, many animals, traditional construction methods and kitchen, and several people including a 107 year old man. Technology has intruded here as well, as in one of the shots you can see the electricity wires and a dish for satellite TV. Access was by a suspension bridge that would be at home in a midway – definitely a fun ride, or walk as the case may be.

The Bridge

We celebrated my birthday this week. Dianne arranged a cake with one of the restaurants. This is not something usually done here, so it took a special arrangement and it was an excellent treat, even if it was the most unusual birthday cake I’ve ever had – chocolate, served hot with fruit on top. Of course, we are in Costa Rica, so it was a day late. This was Dianne’s fault – we’re not sure if she’s completely become Costa Rican (Manana), or if she’s still confused from the date debate last month. (She’s not used to being right, you see)

The Waterfall

Yesterday we got a computer lab back up and running at a school near the Panama border. Eugene had his first bus experience, including having to pay more because our stop was the one AFTER where we bought our ticket to. Those Spanish lessons are still badly needed.

This morning the howler monkeys got us up early. They were particularly loud because they spent the night in the tree outside our window. I blame Dianne – she put a mango in the tree to attract them.

Careful what you wish for!

Having fun with our company

We’re having a hoot showing Marilyn and Eugene around. Yesterday we went for a long walk and we swam in the ocean at the black sand beach. Last night when we went to bed, there was a big old frog on Eugene’s bed. While Marilyn was shooing him away, a bat flew out of a corner of their room. We were killing ourselves laughing.

Today Charles had a meeting in Limon, so the three of us went snorkeling. The coral is very interesting and the fish were great. The reef was badly damaged in an earth quake years ago, but it was still pretty neat. Then later this afternoon we went to my office. It was such a wonderful day for playing in the ocean. It was really warm and the waves were big but not nasty. What a great day.

I’m not going to write much today, but since a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a few pages worth…

Old Friends

New Friends

Way more More New Friends!