Photos from our walk

Finding tadpoles and getting a ride

The view into San Luis from our walk before and after the clouds moved in

Planting a little garden

Completing a 2.5 hour hike in only 3 hours and 45 minutes

Today Tony and I set off on a hike at 8:45am, after a pancake breakfast with Liana, Jaal, and Melinda. This was the first time we left Liana with Jaal and Melinda since we arrived, and they had a great time.
They planted a garden and then went for a hike to meet us, greeting horses along the way.

Tony and I were heading down the ox cart trail to Tim and Murtha's house in San Luis. There we would meet Murtha and walk the loop, through upper San Luis, up the trocha and back to our home. Murtha says it usually takes 2-2.5 hours of good walking.
We got down to her house in only 40 minutes, although the trail was muddy and we stopped briefly to talk to the music teacher at the school that we bumped into on the road. Tony arranged to play with some other musicians this afternoon and now will join them at their bluegrass gig tonight at the new "Monteverde Beer House" in Santa Elena. We stopped to check out some leaf cutter ants briefly and to take in the view, but were making pretty good time down a very steep, muddy "road" with parts of it clearly washing away as we walked.

From Murtha's we continued on into San Luis, stopping for a little bit at an area of the road that had been severely damaged by recent rains. The rain had "jumped the acantarilla," or gone outside of the drainage ditch into the road and started eating away about one third of the only road to their house. The hole underneath was quite extensive as it used to be a leaf cutter ant home and there were lots of tunnels for the heavy rain to bore through. After calling Tim and letting him know about the problem, we kept going.

We decided to stop in at Amy's house a little further down the road. We hadn't seen the house since her old home burned down last year and they rebuilt. We stopped in to say hi, grab a glass of water and see her lovely new home. Our stop was brief so we wouldn't be that much later than we said. Luckily I was able to call Jaal before he left for their hike to let them know we were about an hour behind schedule. He was planning on walking to the top of the trocha to meet us with Liana in the stroller. The walk was hard, hot and long, but quite lovely. We are older and in worse shape than last time we lived here, but we did just fine.

It was hot and sunny, but then as we started our ascent the clouds rolled in and we were relieved to be in the clouds again. Near the top of the hill we ran into Jaal, Melinda and Liana and we walked the rest of the way together. Walking with Liana included stopping to feed grass to a horse, doing some slow walking, all "running" holding hands down the road per Liana's clear instructions, and stopping to look at tadpoles on the side of the road. As we were nearing home Tim drove by in his old truck on the way to bring yogurt to the store and some of us got a ride in the back the rest of the way.

We didn't see any monkeys, toucans, or tarantulas, but beside that it was a pretty perfect, typical Monteverde Saturday. The rest of the day it rained hard, so we hung out in the hammock, played with playdough, made muffins, checked out the scorpion that Melinda and Jaal found, and Tony went to go play music with some new friends.

I posted some photos of the day and more will come soon.

Tomorrow Rise is having a mom and toddler brunch at her house and will probably stay home and try once again to fix our forever running toilet and our light switch issue.

Strangler gig tree and howlers

We went to a strangler gig tree than Liana said is like a playground. I have vivid memories of Lev enjoying that tree. I'll pull up some photos later of him on that tree, too. We also saw howler monkeys right near our house today, as we were walking to the store. We got caught in quite a rain and had to run to the dairy and eat ice cream while we waited for a break in the weather. The lightening and thunder have been pretty amazing in the late afternoons.

Bajo Tigre

Hiking in Bajo Tigre on Sunday we saw coatis, an amazing moth, guans, and leaf cutter ants.

Extension cord

We were just talking about home made extension cords when I saw this one in use at some construction in a local shopping center.
Labor is cheap, yet tools and materials are not so people use what they can to get the job done.

daily walks

 Here are some photos from just walking around, near our house. The photo above is of the "land shrimp" that cover our entry way every morning. No one has been able to explain why they come to die on our doorstep, but it's a big pile we need to sweep up every morning. At least they don't bite.

 Today, walking home (which took forever because Liana decided the road was too bumpy in the stroller and she insisted on walking, and stopping, much of the way) we ran into a herd of cows being moved to a different pasture.  A tree had also fallen in the road just past our turn, creating the traffic you see in the photo.

 Thanks to Jenny for selling us this stroller, although I'm going to try lining the back with a pillow to soften the bumps. Where the Co-pe used to be (about half a mile from our house) there is a small food store, named Whole Foods, that has a lot of locally produced items, and basic groceries, so we can walk and put stuff under the stroller. The owners are Tico and Australian and I suppose thought the name was a good idea. We can get Benito's cow and goat cheeses and milk certain days of the week, Mary Rockwell's peanut butter, Murtha's yogurt and sometimes her kombucha, as well as local eggs, produce and breads. They also have high priced gringo import items such as chocolate chips, balsamic vinegar and sea salt. Many of those items cost about the same as at PCC in the states, which is a lot considering the local wage is so much lower. Obviously if you are on a local income you are eating mostly rice and beans and bananas. A nanny, house cleaner, or repairman makes about $2.50-3.00 an hour, yet restaurants are quite pricey, with meals being often around $8 and cheese at the local factory is more expensive than in the US.

 We stopped by to see the horse at La Colina on our way to the store.

 At the store we ran into Rise and her son Liam. They found a walking stick under the bench where they sat and ate oranges. The walking stick is on the piece of grass they are holding, near the top. It's about four inches long.

 This dog lives nearby and seems to be one of Snowy's relatives.

A lovely cockroach in the road. We also saw blue morpho butterflies and a mot mot.

Today I left Liana at a little day care for a couple hours while I went up to the school. She had a great time and didn't ask for me once. She is into repeating words in Spanish and definitely understands that people are speaking another language that she doesn't know yet. She said, "I want leche," at home and then laughed at her use of Spanish.

The faroles and 15 de setiembre

The lantern walk last night and Independence Day today. And we found out the bird we have been hearing is actually a grey-necked wood rail. I'll post a video with the sound.

Continued photos of our house

You can't see my scrubbing the walls, Tony attempting to fix the toilet, tony land shrimp cover the entryway every morning, nor the bits blown by trees that wake us and litter our roof.

Photos of the inside of our house

Ode to a black breasted wood quail

"Good morning," you shout

At the tender hour of five-thirty in the morning

"Squawk, screech, repeat, repeat, repeat, coo-coo-coo

Get up little toddler"

Awaken the bellbird, "Tweet, bonk."

"Get up, get up"

Run outside in your underwear

Searching

Dreaming of methods of capture 

Relocation

Is it really you, quail?

Or is it another bird

Elusive

Annoying

Good morning to you

San Luis with Tim and Murtha

Today we walked down the oxcart trail to San Luis to visit Tim and Murtha on their farm. They have lots of farm animals and gardens as well as alternative energy projects and a beautiful house with an amazing view. The trail had been bulldozed recently and was quite muddy in parts. It took about an hour each what each way to walk. If you look closely at the picture where there are rocks on the hill you will see Liana on top. She insisted on walking herself for a while and then refused to go in the backpack or walk and was left sitting there until we convinced her to go in the backpack.

Beetle of the day

This beetle tried to crawl in our house today. We also found out that the bird that wakes us up in the morning is the black breasted wood quail. And we heard toucans.

Liana is getting used to the sound of thunder and played well with a new friend, Liam (Rise's son.)