Our hosts, Erwan and Ingrid, are both French. They have been here eleven years, and I wanted to find out why they, and so many other Europeans, have set up businesses and live here.
So, over early morning coffee (breakfast starts at 7:30, but Erwan is out preparing it at 6:30, and has graciously left a coffee pot out for me so I can get up and make coffee any time I want) we talked. The short of it: He and Ingrid were engineers, but wanted a change. They felt it was easier to make the change here in Costa Rica, due to the friendly business climate. With two kids, aged 10 and 4, they have more time for family and life in general.
During breakfast we heard a toucan, but I didn’t see it. A troop of white faced monkeys, Capuchin Monkeys, moved through the trees and posed up high, looking down at us. They swing and jump tree to tree like proper monkeys should. There is a loud crash as they land above us, raining leaves and sticks down on us.
They tell us sloths abound here, so I am hopeful we will see on. But I may be out of luck on anteaters. In eleven years they have seen one.
But I am looking.
It is so humid that the empty envelope I use to hold receipts and business cards sticks itself shut. Nothing is ever totally dry. The towel gets mostly dry after hanging, and when you towel off after a shower you feel mostly dry, but a little sticky and damp. My hair feels chunky, which is nice in a way since I hardly have any.
My camera quit working and I am reduced to just using my iPhone camera now. Erwan is pretty sure it is the humidity, which makes a lot electronics go on the fritz, and the guy from Montreal at the table next to us agrees. His camera quit as well. Erwan goes and gets me a bag of rice and a zip-lock, and so I have my camera on rice trying to get it to work.
- OK, at this point I am going to skip ahead in the story, because I can. This is my blog and I can shift and shape time and events as I see fit. This is one of those times.
As I write this it is actually Thursday, the 29 December. My camera came to life just briefly, but once again it is shut down. I still have it stored in the bag of rice, and I guess I will see if it starts to work again in the low humidity where we live. Erwan tells me that their cameras go out pretty regularly here, and that other guests have had the same problem. If you come here on a trip, it might be worth bringing a waterproof camera, or a backup, or bagging the camera in rice ahead of time. So far there has been no effect on my iPhone or MacBook. But the camera is a paperweight.
- January 2 update: The camera is working again, after drying out for one day at home.
I read a book long ago, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, who used the word “fecundity” in relation to the teeming life of a forest. That was the first time I had heard the term. I totally get it now. The rainforest here is swarming with life. There are plants growing off the flowers that are on the vies that hang off the trees that are in the middle of the forest, surrounded by flowering bushes. During the day, but even more at night, the air is filled with chirps and cheeps and squeaks and buzzing and croaking. You can just sit and watch it all moving, and there is so much more hidden from view. Giant grasshoppers, two or three inches long. Walking leaf insects, ants, spiders two inches across.
Mosquitoes.
I am not a mosquito person. I mean, I am not bait. At home, others get bit, not me.
But here? My ankles alone have like fifty bites, up my legs, my forearms… I have sprayed on the heavy duty DEET and even rubbed it in. Gail the organic solutions girl, is using it as well.
When it rains, it pours down, dumping loud and steady, enough to wake you at night. And this is a rain forest, so it rains every damn day.
Rain crashing down. So loud it drowns out all the other noises. Loud splats on the huge flat leafed plants, drumming on the roof. It even drowns out the roar of the howler monkeys around us.
The howler monkeys. So loud that they have given us ear plugs for night, but I think that is over kill, personally. I actually enjoy the sound, again it is just so different, but some people find it annoying. Think about the gorillas you have seen on TV. You know, they go “oo-oo-ahh-AHH-AHH!”
So take out the “ahh-AHH” part and just make it a long “ooo” that gets louder, sort of like a 350 pound man getting up and out of the lazy boy, and you have the basic idea. But loud. It really echoes through the trees.
Today the plan is to walk. We are heading south, walking to Manzanillo along the beach.
The surf very high and angry, coming up into the trees along the beach, and we get hit by waves pretty regularly. At one point it starts to pour down on us, and so we shelter as best as we can under the trees, but still get soaked.
At least it is warm.
We end up wading across four big rivers that dump into the ocean. The water is knee deep or more, but with the surf pushing in and high tide, we wait, timing it so the wave is out. Then we run and splash our way across at the widest spot, lowest to the beach, before the next wave crashes in.
We were mostly successful at this.
Coconuts on the beach.
The coastline disappears in the distance, due to the humidity haze. Palm trees and broad leafed trees…
OW!
Goddamnitsonofabitchfuckingshit! and fifty other cuss words later, some of them I never strung together before, and I am holding my throbbing left hand.
I have been stung twice in the soft spot between pinky and ring finger by some sort of a very angry black wasp. I mean, it really stings! My hand is on fire, but that subsides after an hour. Then it got warm, and pretty swollen, but that eased after a few hours.
Jump ahead in time again, and here it is two days later and my hand is still a little stiff, and it itches like crazy. Turns out it was not a psychotic wasp, but the fearsome bullet ant.
Check out this quote: "The sting of the Bullet ant is said to be the most painful of any sting and is compared to being hit by a bullet. In the Amazon the Bullet Ant is known as "Hormiga Veinticuatro" the 24 Hour Ant, because it's sting can last up to 24 hours. After being stung it was described as an immense pain, with "waves of burning”…"
I am lucky to get away with just an hour of burning. And now I feel much better about my chances of surviving if I get shot, by the way.
You know, it’s a fine line between “funky” and “trashy.”
We stayed for a beer, but were the only people in the largest bar in town, so we didn’t really linger.
We decided to walk the 4 km back along the road. We saw huge spiders, butterflies, some with blue tops and black bottoms. A group of howler monkeys were gathered high in a tree, and we looked at the “lot for sale” signs rusted out in front of patches of swampy land.
When we returned we walked out to our little local beach, Playa Punta Uva, where big waves were rolling in. Near the point I saw a sloth up high in a tree, and while staring at that a toucan crossed by. My eye was drawn down to another, smaller tree where, by god, there was another sloth just about three meters off the ground. People were walking right under it, totally oblivious to it.
We stayed and watched it a while, but as the sun set we hustled back to head out for dinner.
We ended up at the El Refugio Grill, where we shared an excellent guacamole and home made chips. Gail had a fantastic fresh tuna steak, and I had steak done the Argentinian style which was just perfect and not at all “local food.” The wine was a decent Malbec from Argentina, and we even had a brownie and ice cream dessert.