Together with John and Heidi

Claire and Caleb are enjoying a swim with their cousins Ella and Sophie right now at our hotel pool. We met up with my brother John and his family yesterday at Arenal volcano! The kids were excited to have time with cousins. Today we enjoyed a boat tour of the Rio Frio, which flows through a wildlife refuge. We saw amazing birds, cayman, sloths, and iguanas. It's possible Caleb was even more impressed by how our guide cut up a pineapple for our snack! Claire and Caleb are enjoying sharing their costa rican world with Ella and Sophie!

Vern is finishing up the trip with the university students right now, and we all return to San Gerardo the 23rd.

On the road

We are enjoying being on the tour of Costa Rica with the students from the field station. We are thankful that our family is feeling well. We did not bring a laptop, so blog updates will be thin until we're back in San Gerardo. Typing on my iPod is not my idea of fun.
We are at our 3rd location of our trip. First Vern hiked with the students and a guide down the mountain to visit a sustainable, family-operated farm that grows over 80 types of plants. A very different approach to agriculture that is attracting the attention of the community. The hike was too far for the kids so I stayed back with them and we drove with the van on tues morning (with the students luggage).
Our 2nd location was in the Pacific rainforest area on the coast; near the town of Uvita if you look on a map. We had a beautiful cabin overlooking the ocean. Vern's been doing field exercises with the students each day and teaching the students the local birds.
We are currently in the dry deciduous forest of the Nicoya Peninsula, at Playa Ostional. It's very hot and dry here. You sweat by the time you've sat up in bed in the morning! Speaking of which, there's troup of howler monkeys living here that wake us up each day. The sound is similar to a lions roar! Tonight we are checking out the turtles that lay eggs on the beach here; we are excited to head out after dark to do that!
(Laurenna, we spent yesterday in playa Guiones!)
Interestingly, we are only about 30kms from where my brother and his family are staying right now!
The kids are enjoying time with the students when they are not busy. The kids have travelled on the bus wonderfully, and any issues they struggle with are nothing they wouldn't deal with anyways.
Photos will have to wait until we are back at our cabin.

Upcoming Ecosystems Tour of Costa Rica

Allow me a short diversion before I describe our next trip.  Our first morning back from Panama, we were welcomed back by several quetzal birds!  We heard them calling while we ate breakfast, and so we went out in search of them and were fortunate enough to watch them fly around in the forest overhead.  It’s mating season, so they are pretty active in the San Gerardo valley these days.  Here’s a photo of a male. 

We haven’t been back a week yet, and I’m already preparing our family for our next trip—a tour of the biomes/ecosystems of Costa Rica with the students from the QERC field station.  We leave this Monday (March 12). Vern’s been working with the station manager to prepare reading material and field exercises that the students will complete on this trip.  There are several interesting focal points:  learning the ecology of different ecosystems of Costa Rica; seeing different types of resource management (eg. a family-owned sustainable farm, national parks, a biological research station, etc.); and reflecting on how to steward each of these unique environments.  This last point is important to the mission of QERC, since they/we are training students to be faithful to the call to care for God's creation. 

Our family is really excited to go on this trip for several reasons: we are looking forward to seeing and experiencing other regions of Costa Rica; we enjoy spending time with the university students, and the kids soak up the extra attention; someone else is making all of the travel arrangements, something we will appreciate after our Panama trip; and near the end of the biomes tour, we get to meet up with John, Heidi, Ella and Sophie (my brother and his family) at Arenal volcano!    

Vern will finish up the biomes trip and return to San Gerardo de Dota with the QERC students, and I will travel back with Claire & Caleb and John & Heidi’s family.  We all return on March 23^rd.  We’ve booked a cabin right next to ours for John and Heidi to stay at for several days before they return to Canada.  Claire and Caleb are anticipating showing their cousins our Costa Rican home here in San Gerardo de Dota. 

This past week has been challenging for Vern, as he’s been under the weather with a cold.  We appreciate your prayers for Vern to recover fully from his cold before we leave, and that our family would stay healthy.  We’ve been extra thankful for our vehicle this week so Vern hasn't needed to hike back up the mountain each day after working at the QERC field station.     

Back Home in San Gerardo de Dota

Yesterday we arrived back home safely from Panama! We left on Friday and stayed overnight in San Jose, to avoid travelling after dark.  After getting some groceries in the city, we caught a noon bus yesterday and arrived in San Gerardo mid-afternoon.  It felt good to be back in our cabin and unpack our things.  Not surprisingly, today is laundry day.

Thank-you for your prayers as we travelled.  We had a great week together as a family in Panama. Instead of writing a lot, I’ll share photos of the highlights of our trip, as well as images of the people and town of Bocas del Toro.  These travels are teaching us to be thankful for what we have in Canada—lots of space, abundant resources, and clean surroundings are the things that come to mind immediately. 

We are also thankful that we now have our Costa Rican tourist Visas renewed until we leave at the end of April. That was the reason we went to Panama (among other more-fun reasons!).  Vern was also able to investigate research opportunities at a leading marine research station run by the Smithsonian Institute.  One of his key sabbatical activities has been investigating the calibre of international research opportunities for his students at King’s University, so he felt our side-trip to Panama was time well spent. 

This week Vern will be continuing to prepare for guiding the “Ecosystems of Costa Rica” trip with the students from the QERC field station.  This trip begins on March 12, and is one of his teaching commitments while we are here.  Our family is joining the students on that trip.  The kids will get in one week of Spanish school before we leave. This week Vern will also be preparing for teaching an ecology course to the QERC students in early April.  He has a research paper out for review right now, so it’s a good time for him to work on other commitments.

OK, before more delay, here are some photos of our trip to Panama.



Claire and Jesse relaxing on the bus



I take snuggles when I can get them.



Walking across the bridge at the Panama border.  This bridge is over 100 yrs old and was very dilapidated! 

  

We stayed in a cabin over the ocean at KoKo Resort in Bocas del Toro. 



Caleb fished many early mornings right off our dock.

 

The kids were very excited to sleep in the loft

Homeschooling on our deck.



The sidewalk from our cabin out to the street.



Laundry day at our neighbour's, a local fishing family.  The kids would play and fish a lot out on the narrow deck!

Our other neighbour.  Claire enjoyed swimming with the 8-yr old girl living there.



Claire and Shana, who lived next to us.  She's a Dutch girl who was born in Panama.  Interestingly, she speaks 5 languages as a result of her heritage and schooling: spanish, english, german, dutch and hebrew. 



The road to a local beach.

We stumbled across this beachside research station.  That would attract a certain crowd....





We saw a few sting rays swimming along the beach.



We did a tour one day that took us by boat through the mangrove areas around Bocas del Toro. 

Can you see the sloth?  We stopped by an island that is known for its many sloths.  We regretted not having our zoom lens along that day!

We also stopped at dolphin bay, where we got to watch the dolphins jumping.  We also did some snorkelling at another location (no photo, unfortunately), and we all had a lot of fun snorkelling.

We did a short hike on an island with many of these very tiny poison arrow dart frogs.  There are many varieties of the poison arrow dart frog.

Vern and the kids took surf lessons one day.  They had a lot of fun!  I was the designated photographer.

Baywatch here I come!

The instructor was great with the kids, and first took each of them on the board with him to give them a feel for surfing.

Claire and Louis, the instructor.

Claire surfing!

Caleb surfing!

Ever wonder where your bananas come from?  This Chiquita cargo ship is loaded with bananas!

A banana plantation--we passed many plantations along the highway.  Many local people are employed by Chiquita. 

Our last morning in Panama. 

Planes, trains, and automobiles

We made it safely to Bocas del Toro, Panama!  I am writing this on our deck, with the ocean lapping the shores nearby.  We are staying in a cabin on stilts on the ocean.  Caleb and Claire are fishing off the dock, while Vern gets supper ready and I update our blog. 

Getting here was no small feat.  We started out on Thursday, knowing that we would need to get a good start in the morning on Friday to make it across the Panamanian border before it closed at 5pm.  This border crossing is known to be slow and confusing.  During our two days of travel (Thrs and Fri), we took a total of 10 “increments” of transportation to get here:  4x4 vehicle, bus, taxi to hotel, taxi to bus station, bus #1, bus #2 (because bus #1 was carrying burlap sacks of dried “plant material” not allowed across the border...?), a walk across dilapidated bridge at the border, van, boat, taxi! Count ‘em—that’s 10.  (John and Heidi—now you’re thinking that every dollar spent on our turismo van will be well spent, right!?! Yes!)

We were pretty exhausted and very thankful to arrive safely.  Thank-you for your prayers!  Considering everything, the kids were great travelers, and took it all in stride.  I have no doubt they are absorbing a lot as we drive through the cities, towns and countryside.  Nothing is sugar coated, so the message that not everyone lives as well as we do in Canada will never be better demonstrated without words.  In this context, my efforts at homeschooling on trips like this seem rather small.

Our hotel is a cultural experience.  The cabin itself is quaint and comfortable, and is nestled right in with the local fishing families who live on the ocean on houses on stilts.  So we get to see how they live—it’s a very colourful and sensory existence here.  You’ll see from our photos that I’ll add to the blog next week.  It doesn’t appear that the wealth of tourism is spread into the community.  I wonder what they think of living next to a hotel, with foreigners coming and going.  Cab drivers are often interested in talking to us about Canada, and always ask if we are from Vancouver, Montreal or Toronto.   

We are still learning not to take local advice too literally.  A restaurant with “great tacos” was recommended to us yesterday, so we found our way in the dark to the restaurant, only to eat tacos made with just shredded cabbage and cheese.  We also had a beach recommended to us today that we couldn’t really find.  Where we did end up swimming, we were rewarded by seeing several sting rays. 

Hah, a gecko just jumped onto my empty wine glass and is licking the edges.  They like wine too. J

  

Tomorrow we want to hit the produce market to buy some fresh food that we can eat in our kitchenette, and then we’re hoping to go kayaking out to the mangrove areas.  There’s a Smithsonian Institute nearby that we are also hoping to visit and tour this week.

Panama

We are leaving on a trip to Panama on Thursday (Feb. 23^rd) after the kids are done school for the day. We have to leave Costa Rica for a minimum of 3 days, in order to meet tourist Visa restrictions, which only allow us to stay for 90 consecutive days in Costa Rica.  Panama borders Costa Rica to the east.  We are staying on one of several islands on the Caribbean side of Panama called Bocas del Toro, which is known for its beaches, snorkeling, kayaking, maybe turtles, and other fun things to do and see.  If we have to leave the country, we thought we’d make it worth our time!  

Your prayers for safe bus travel and smooth bus connections and border crossing are appreciated!  We are back in San Gerardo de Dota on Friday, March 2^nd. 

Celebrations and Frustrations

As I write this, Claire and Caleb are attending the local Spanish elementary school.  That is a reason to celebrate, as it means they are brave enough to immerse themselves in something completely new.  It also means Vern and I have a few hours of freedom during the weekday mornings.  We put Caleb in the grade 1 class, since he would absolutely tower over the little Kindergartners here, who are just starting their school year and are naturally smaller in stature.  We figured it would be good for Claire and Caleb to be in the same class; it’s a one-room schoolhouse, so Grades 1-6 are in the same classroom!  This has turned out to be a good decision, so the kids are on the same schedule and Claire can help Caleb when he’s struggling.  Grades 1-3 start at 7am, which means we are walking to school by 6:40am!  The older grades start mid-morning.  There’s a Costa Rican Spanish teacher and an English teacher from the U.S. who’s volunteering here for the school year.  The subjects taught at the school are: math, English, Spanish, social studies, agriculture and science.  One day last week I arrived a bit early to pick up the kids so I sat outside the English class, only to hear Caleb squawking out the English alphabet 3x faster and louder than anyone else in the class….I guess it felt pretty good for him to finally know what he was supposed to do!

The school has a small courtyard in the middle for soccer and basketball, and there’s a very small play structure.  The kids get two recesses during the morning.  They are also served a hot lunch every school day at 10:45am; that’s a culinary adventure for Claire and Caleb!  Fridays are early dismissal….at 9:10am, after two hours of classes.  That’s truly an early dismissal time, considering some schools in Canada only start at 9am!  Caleb has been saying school is too long, so he liked early dismissal on Friday last week. 

Escuela la Lidia (apple/peach orchards in the background)

Claire and Caleb ready for their first day of spanish school.  Everyone wears navy and white uniforms.

We also celebrated Caleb’s 6^th birthday last week!  The first words out of his mouth were “I’m six!”.  He had a great day, complete with a water balloon fight, gifts from us and our neighbours, pizza and brownies.  To top it off, Mario and Laura invited Claire and Caleb over to watch a movie at their cabin in the evening.    

Caleb got water balloons for his birthday and enjoyed a water balloon fight with Claire and Julio.

We gave Caleb a boat craft for his birthday, which he enjoyed making and sailing on the small trout ponds around here.

Another reason we are celebrating is that we now have some Costa Rican wheels!  Our neighbours down the road had a friends’ car parked at their place for a few months and offered it to us.  We paid them to pick up a new battery for it, and we now have transportation around San Gerardo de Dota.  We can only use it in police-free San Gerardo, since it’s not registered or insured, and without any gas station in town we have the logistical issue of getting gas, so we won’t use the vehicle that much.  But it frees us up to go farther and to go out in the evening after dark.  The concept of walking everywhere you need to go in town sounds easy, but it’s been exhausting at times….there’s no such thing as a “quick errand”. We are happy to have a bit more freedom.  

I’ve mentioned we have very friendly, generous neighbours.  They invited us over for dinner the other night (one of our first evening excursions when we didn’t have to walk home in the dark b/c we had our own vehicle!) and we enjoyed a turkey dinner, complete with stuffing, wine, and tarts for dessert.  That felt like a celebration!   

One more celebration that I'll share—our family spent the weekend by ourselves at the field station as a change of pace.  The university students are on a trip to Nicaragua, so we moved in for a few days, with permission from the station manager and enjoyed extra space, nice kitchen with microwave! and the TV.  It was very enjoyable! (Interesting side note: we were woken up this morning at 5am to the sensation of our bed moving and the veranda doors clinking together!  We figure it was a small earth tremor!) 

Now for a frustration or two.  We’ve had water leaking from the one tap we have in our cabin, causing frequent flooding on the floor.  For many fix-it jobs, we are told “manana” (which is supposed to mean in the morning or tomorrow, but often doesn’t mean either!).  So Vern took matters into his own hands, and gave Mario the specifics of what type of tap we needed and offered to install it himself.  That didn’t go well (not Vern’s fault, but I won’t take the time to discuss plumbing details!).  After many hours in the cramped space under our sink, some advice from a neighbor, more plumbing parts from other neighbours, and being covered with goopy caulking and spider webs, we had a new faucet that doesn’t leak (nearly as much, anyways….).  Where’s Home Depot when you need it??!!  

A Big Grin

The other day Claire and Caleb were determined to walk by themselves down the road to the pulperia (tiny corner store) to buy a few eggs.  I gave Claire the appropriate Spanish phrase to use (“necesito ocho huevos, por favor”) and some money, and off they went.  Fifteen minutes later, I stepped out the door wondering if I could see them coming, and Claire proudly held up a plastic bag filled with 8 eggs—complete with a big grin!  The kind that says I Did It!

Last night, as I drove Mario’s vehicle by myself down the winding gravel road into San Gerado de Dota, I realized that I had a similar big grin on my face.  This was my first time driving a vehicle since December, so it was fun navigating the hair-pin turns in the dark J.     

I spent the day with Mario and his family yesterday, running errands in San Jose.  His wife and daughter are back from a long holiday, and needed to do some back-to-school errands in the city before school starts tomorrow.  I went along for a change of pace and to buy staples at the Costa Rican version of Costco.  We left at 7am for the two hour drive to San Jose; Claire and Caleb woke up just in time to say goodbye to me before I left. 

After a winding trip to San Jose and a stop for a typical breakfast—rice and beans, chicken, and of course great coffee!—Mario dropped me off at the Costa Rican Costco, so I could shop while his family did their errands.  I received a few funny looks at the store when I loaded all of my many groceries into a large suitcase that I could pull behind me while I found a nearby spot to read and wait for them to pick me up.  Never mind the fact that I tried to use Mario’s membership card, and I’m clearly not Mario (which didn’t make the manager happy, so I flashed my VISA, which worked like a charm!).  

Several hours later, they picked me up with my load of groceries.  After an additional hour or more of driving through winding streets, and numerous stops and errands, Mario and I headed back in the direction of San Gerardo.  He’d dropped off his daughter in the city of Cartago where she goes to high school, and his wife Laura stayed in San Jose for an appointment.  On the way, he asked me if I drive a car in Canada.  Sure, I replied, without much thought.  When we reached the turn-off to the gravel road down to San Gerardo, he hopped out and indicated that he needed me to drive his vehicle down to the village so he could drive his quad, which happened to be parked there. I thought it was funny that he didn’t ask if I drive standard.    

So that’s how I ended up driving Mario’s vehicle by myself in the dark down the scariest road I’ve ever driven, with a big grin (never mind that the “Check Engine” light went on, half-way down the mountain!).  Thanks for your prayers, Mom and Dad!

 

Claire and Caleb having lunch with Erica, the daughter of Mario (who we rent our cabin from).  The kids adore Erica, since she gives them so much attention and enjoys feeding them; unfortunately, she lives in another city to go to school. 



Lunch with Mario and his wife Laura (who's from Vancouver, but has lived in Costa Rica most of her life). We are blessed with wonderful people around us here.   

“Casa de Queso” and our Quest for Cheese

I promise not all of our blog entries will be about food….

As I’ve mentioned, San Gerardo de Dota does not have a Superstore; nowhere to one-stop-shop, that’s for sure! The local “pulperia” is maybe the equivalent of a Mac’s, but even that is generous, since there certainly are no 4L jugs of milk or slurpees.     

So to actually have all the food you need for a certain recipe on hand, takes some planning, even for something as simple as grilled cheese for lunch.  Cheese is even more difficult for us to get than milk, since milk comes in room-temperature tetra packs that are easily transported.  And we can't exactly ask our friends who occasionally go to the city and pick up food for us to arrange their travels so as to bring us fresh cheese. 

We’d heard through the grapevine of a guy down the road who makes cheese (and whose house was nicknamed “casa de queso” [house of cheese] by a student at the field station).  That sounded promising to us, so we were willing to give it a try.  We walked there yesterday.  Turns out this guy lives at the very end of the San Gerardo road, making it quite the trek to get cheese!  We’d failed to plan ahead and bring headlamps, so we ended up walking back in the dark.  But we now have cheese—a 1-kg soft, white brick of homemade cheese.  It’s quite different from the hard, orange cheddar we are used to in Canada, but I’m crossing my finger that the kids will eat it. 

On another note:

The anticipation of February 8^th has taken on mythical proportions around here, at least in the mind of a certain boy in our family.  Not only is it his 6^th birthday, it also happens to be his 100^th day of Kindergarten (which they are celebrating in his classroom back home too), and we now know it’s the first day of elementary school here after the Costa Rican summer holidays.  Can we pile anything else into that day?!  That’s not your average birthday.  I’ve promised to bake brownies for his birthday cake, now that I have acquired some very coveted cocoa powder.  

Just a nice photo.... 

A Few Detours Before Supper

Vern promised Caleb that he could catch a big trout in one of ponds here, and then we’d get Mario to cook it for our family for supper at his restaurant.  For a boy who loves fishing and eating fish, that sounded like a great plan! But even a good plan can have some detours, especially around here.

Yesterday after lunch the kids and I headed down the road on foot to meet up with a playmate (Nathan).  That turned out to be fun for both Claire and Caleb, until other neighbourhood boys showed up, “stealing” Nathan’s attention (at least in Claire’s opinion).  It was pretty hard for her to compete with other kids that can converse fluently in spanish.  Caleb wasn’t bothered in the least, since he could always resort to some form of boyish wrestling when communication broke down.  Eventually, a game of soccer began, and the boys all hit it off.  I enjoyed a visit and coffee with Nathan’s mom and several of her friends (who spoke zero English).

Shortly before 5pm, we decided to start walking home for supper, since we’d arranged with Mario to have Caleb catch one of his fish and then eat it at his restaurant, or so we thought.  As we were leaving, there was some discussion about Nathan joining us for the walk.  We soon found ourselves with our kids, plus Nathan and two other kids!  This was the first bump in our plan – how did we end up with so many kids?  Were they joining us for supper?  This was a good example of the language barrier leading to a few adventures and some confusion.

By the time we’d reached our cabin, and Claire and Caleb had proudly showed their new friends our home (including our trout pond – see photo below), one of the boys had peed his pants.  Argh. This was the 2^nd detour – repair the damaged ego of a 7 year old boy and give him a pair of Caleb’s pants and underwear.  (Claire’s very concerned about how we will get them back).  We filed all the kids through our tiny bathroom, to prevent further accidents. 

Thankfully, I remembered Nathan’s mom saying that his friend (who we thought was named Julio) lived nearby, and he could be dropped off there.  Nathan seemed to know where Julio lived, so Vern dropped off the kids there.  Phew, down to just our two!

We’d actually extended an invitation to another family (ex-Texans!) to join us for supper, and I was now wondering if they might be waiting for us at the restaurant. Who knew supper plans could get so complicated?!

By now it was getting dark, and Caleb still hadn’t caught our supper. We headed straight for Mario’s restaurant, Caleb and Vern with fishing rods in hand.  When we arrived, Mario proudly held up 2 big trout that he was going to cook for us.  Our 3rd detour  – Caleb wanted nothing to do with fish that someone else had caught!  HE wanted to catch the fish!  (I often admire Caleb’s determination, but not this time…). Mario has an obvious soft spot for Caleb, and graciously accommodated our determined boy; he piled Claire and Caleb onto his quad and headed off in the dark, with a very tired Vern following on foot, to some pond with big fish.  They returned happy, with two big trout!

After all that, supper was especially delicious!  As we were getting ready to walk back to our cabin, Caleb spontaneously jumped up and gave Mario a big hug!   

We are frequently reminded to go with the flow out here.        

----------------------- 

P.S. Caleb’s hunter-gatherer mentality also has positive spin-offs....we had fresh blackberry juice for lunch today.  He’s been very diligent in checking the ripeness of our blackberries every day, and was determined to turn today’s little crop of berries into juice!  Delicious!

A Typical Day -- part 2

We returned from our trip to the coast several days ago.  We felt like we were coming home to a familiar place here.  A nice feeling!  Caleb even said he missed Mario (the owner of our cabin, who has the best laugh around, and seems to really like the kids).  

We are reminded daily of the many blessings we have here – not only the beautiful surroundings, but also the wonderful community of people.  We are making friends with the local families, not because we can communicate fluently, but because they open their homes to us. One family down the road about a 20 minute walk have fed us and helped us with our Spanish several times.  Claire and Caleb have really enjoyed playing with their 7-year old son, Nathan, and their puppy. What’s remarkable is that this family makes a living running quite a nice restaurant, and we have yet to pay for a meal (we’ve tried!).  We’ve wanted to provide some business for their family by eating at their restaurant, but they insist that they are sharing a meal with friends. 

Now I’ll finally continue my description of our typical days here in San Gerardo de Dota.  I think I only got about as far as breakfast last time. 

I’ve been homeschooling the kids in the mornings after breakfast, usually for about an hour.  They relish the fact that they get to be done school after only an hour and then they get to play; to be honest, I don’t know how kindergarten teachers can keep the attention of a 5-yr old boy on learning for any longer than an hour! That being said, I see evidence the kids are learning.  It’s also been interesting, since I’m schooling them in English and German, but they are surrounded by Spanish speakers when they step out the door.  The other day the kids laughed when I was working on numbers with Caleb in german and threw in a Spanish number without realizing it.  This week we worked on squirrel monkey projects -- Caleb’s practiced his show-and-tell, and Claire created a Powerpoint presentation and written report. She is learning how to type with correct finger placement, so this was good practice. Vern will be the lucky audience tomorrow. 

After homeschooling on weekdays, the kids and I have the day together to do what we want while Vern’s at the field station.  Without wanting to sound too much like Swiss Family Robinson, here’s some things the kids enjoy doing around here and that keep us busy:  hiking up to the horse pasture behind our cabin; walking down the road to meet up with new friends; visiting the trout pond (sometime the kids get to feed the trout); climbing on the rocks by the river; treasure hunts in the yard; playing games in the cabin; playing soccer; buying food from the produce/meat trucks.  The kids have taken it upon themselves to plant some seeds around the yard: mango, papaya, oranges, and garlic cloves. When we told the kids there wouldn’t be fruit before we leave, Caleb suggested Mario mail the fruit to us. 

The kids have yet to say they are bored, thankfully.  I am enjoying a lot more time to read books that I normally wouldn’t have time to.  And the plain truth is, without a dishwasher, I spend a lot of time preparing and cleaning up meals. 

Costa Rican food is enjoyable.  Lunch is their main meal, and ordering a “casado” at a restaurant will get you an affordable and very diverse plate of food: rice, black beans, fish or chicken, a corn tortilla, stir-fried squash mixture, and fried plantains. Here’s a photo of my first attempt at a local dish (gallo pinto). 

The manager of the quetzal field station (Michael) has also been very generous with us, sharing food when we are in a pinch, allowing us to eat some meals there, and passing on copious amounts of advice and information.  He is American (living in Costa Rica for several years), so speaking English with him makes things easy. 

The cook (Nancy) at the field station has also been wonderful to Claire and Caleb, allowing them to play with her 3 daughters and feeding them lunch at her house.  Claire and Caleb seemed quite proud that they’d “survived” a Costa Rican lunch on their own and had eaten what they were given.     

Vern’s enjoyed getting to know the students at the field station, and has done several hikes and orientation sessions with them.  He is also trying to figure out where they are at in their academic programs, so he knows how to develop the material for the ecology course he’s teaching them in early April.   

On the home front, we now have internet in our cabina!  Latin American style -- Mario came and drilled a couple holes to run an internet cable from his modem into our cabin.  So we now have an internet cable coming in through our bedroom window.  That’s a big improvement – now my hikes to the field station and elsewhere can be for pleasure, instead of necessity.  Vern usually returns from the field station at 4pm, and then I’ve been doing some exploring on my own for an hour or so before supper.

I’ve been asked about how I do laundry, so I’m happy to say that I have access to real laundry machines!  It was a relief to find that out.  Mario and his wife let us use their machines.  Seeing many crinkled-up jeans and shirts on laundry lines, leaves me with the impression that most locals hand-wash and dry their clothes. Yikes.

The sun sets around 6pm, and it gets very dark because street lights are few and far between!  We don’t go anywhere in the late afternoon without packing our headlamps!  We could effectively market Petzl out here!

Several people have asked what time zone we are in – one hour ahead of Edmonton, so the same as Manitoba.

I think that’s it for now.  I have so many photos I want to share, so here's a mixture of shots you'll enjoy.    

Hike up to the pasture behind our cabin

Flame-coloured tanager, shot from our kitchen window!

Lizzie the emerald swift lizard, who lives in our yard



Horseback riding



The Savegre River, which runs through San Gerardo de Dota.

We hiked to some local waterfalls with the students from the field station. 





San Gerardo's main road



San Gerardo with clouds rolling in



At the beach last week, in Manuel Antonio National Park

 

A white-throated capuchin monkey at the beach -- one stole part of our lunch!  They work in pairs, with one doing the  distracting and the other stealing food.  Not our favourite monkeys....

A squirrel monkey at our hotel in Manuel Antonio; the troop moved through every morning and early evening.  They were fun to watch!

Mommy and Claire outside our hotel room during trip to Manuel Antonio NP.