We have just a few days left in our crazy Casa Kumbaya. We are packing up our suitcases, trying to eat all the food in the fridge, and enjoying a last few adventures before we leave. Time has been a crazy thing here in Costa Rica. It feels like such a short time has gone by, and I am almost surprised that our 3 months is almost up, but then I look back through the pictures and blogs, and I think of all we have seen and done in that short time, and I'm really proud of us. I think we have had a great glimpse of this beautiful country, and met a lot of cool people along the way.
We noticed a sign near the water for kayak rentals, and went to investigate. A man named Adonis owns a big chunk of land near the harbor, including the Parrot Bay swamp where we have seen crocodiles and Cayman. He also runs a campground and kayak rental nearby. We arranged a time to take the kayaks out, and then Adonis showed us around his property. He told us that he had inherited the land from a North American man who he had worked for years earlier. When the man died, he left Adonis his Costa Rican property in his will. Adonis knows and cares for every tree and every crocodile on his land.
As we strolled around, he showed us a tree where a Crested Owl always sleeps, and another where some Scarlet Macaws were building a nest.
But his pride and joy were his Crocodiles and Cayman. He says he has around 25 of them that live on his property . He feeds them often, and has doctored up a few of them when they have been injured. We walked through the swamp to the waters edge with Adonis, who was barefoot. (He says he never wears shoes unless he is going in to the city. He claims that he can smell snakes, and if he smells a Fer de Lance in the area, he just goes inside, or walks with a flashlight.) At the edge of the swamp, Adonis began calling a few of the Cayman by name. We thought he might have been crazy, until we saw a Cayman slyly swimming up to us from across the swamp. At Adonis' request, the Cayman came completely out of the water, just a few feet from where we were standing. After a few minutes, when we had oohhed and aahhed sufficiently, Adonis dismissed the Cayman, and he galumphed back in to the water. We were so impressed, that we went to the local supermarket and bought some meat scraps to feed the other crocs. All three kids had a turn feeding the crocs and Cayman with Adonis' customized feeding stick. Check out the video at: http://youtu.be/Y__nB05Tc8M and http://youtu.be/jlz5bO6k5HY . It was ridiculous and a little bit scary, just our type of adventure.
The white scars on this Cayman's nose are from fighting other Cayman and crocs. While we were watching, two Cayman came up, both wanting to get a taste of the food we had brought. When they started to fight, Adonis didn't hesitate, and jumped into the water to separate them with his feeding stick. He said he didn't want them to hurt each other. He claims he has never been bitten, although he once had to pry a croc's mouth open with a pry bar, and reach his arm deep down into a crocodile's throat to remove a giant fish hook.
As we were making our way back to the car, Adonis and another man who lives nearby, found a nest of crocodile eggs that had probably been dug up by a raccoon. Adonis said he would come back to the site later that evening and dig up the nest to see if any eggs had survived. If they had, he would carefully lift the eggs from the ground and incubate them at his house in safety until they hatched.
The morning that we went kayaking, the sky was a bit overcast, and we arrived a bit late to explore the mangroves as we had hoped, but we had a nice time anyway. The kids got out and swam a lot. Michael was able to manage his own kayak pretty well, and the girls rode with Chad and me. After almost 2 hours on the water, as we were heading back to shore, a pair of dolphins jumped not far from us. We stayed and watched them for a few minutes more, and although they did not swim away from us for a while, they didn't let us too close either. Seeing the dolphins was a highlight of our kayak trip, but just being out on the calm water of the gulf was pretty fun too.
I think one of the things we will miss most about Costa Rica, is the coconuts. Even after Chad's fall from the coconut tree a few weeks ago, we haven't been ready to give up on our favorite afternoon drink / snack. Chad created this coconut picker from a long piece of bamboo and his machete, and it seems a far better way to get our "pipa" fix.
The Pipa hunters. Check out some video at http://youtu.be/__ubtBSGYcg
Violet is chopping her coconut with her "machete", just like dad does.
After a few hours in the fridge, these are the perfect drink to quench the post-surfing thirst. After we drink the juice, Chad chops them in half and we scoop the young coconut slime out with a spoon. It is soooo good.
We spotted another Boa in our yard, not far from the house one night. As we were headed to the beach, Michael felt a frog jump across his foot, and as he looked down to see it he realized that he was just inches away from stepping on a snake. I looked back just in time to see Michael jump. The snake never seemed too bothered with us. He was about the same size as the one we found on the roof, although he had a lighter color, and a little different pattern. We decided to just let him do his thing, and hoped he would find his way away from our house. Video at http://youtu.be/vP5-AlMZ1Jc
We were headed down to the beach to do some night exploring at low tide. We went on 2 different nights, and found so many cool animals. The first night we saw lots of little eels, which were impossible to photograph. We saw lots of octopus - some a pinkish color that would turn brown for camouflage, and others, like the one in this photo, were greenish and spotted. They were all pretty small, about the size of Violet's foot.
We saw hundreds of these sea stars, many with their arms reaching out from under rocks. They usually moved quickly once they saw us coming. Video at http://youtu.be/cpCamlC2ew0
We saw just a few of these starfish. The kids loved them, because it was one of the few things we let them touch and hold.
We saw lots of these baseball-sized crabs on the larger rocks. Many of them had scarlet eggs under their bellies. Check out the video at http://youtu.be/Y__nB05Tc8M
I don't know what this is, but it was about an inch and a half wide, and maybe 3 inches long. It looked a lot like an underwater potato bug.
We found this Puffer Fish / Porcupine Fish washed up on the beach. Chad nearly stepped on it.
We also saw some tiny baby puffer fish (without spikes) out in the water, trying to be very intimidating by puffing up to the size of a ping pong ball. It was so fun to see so much life on the rocks at night. And it was great that it was right on our beach, only a few minutes away from our house.
The sun and the ocean and the days spent outside are looking good on my kids. I'm sure they have never been this tan in February before, and it feels and looks good. Although I could do without the bug bites (Violet has 73 on one arm and 78 on the other), I will miss these days where we don't have a tv, and the internet is crazy slow, and so we all just play outside together.
It begins and ends with Howlers. On our last night in Osa we went for a little walk along the Matapalo road. We had just returned our surfboard, and had heard some howlers nearby, and went to investigate. The tree, my favorite tree, was full of Howlers singing us a farewell serenade. Our first week in Costa Rica, the Howler monkeys outside our window at 4:30 am had seemed to welcome us to the jungle; we were fascinated and a bit scared, and very excited. Now, 3 months later, 25 or more howlers sang and sang and sang in the tree above our heads. We had never heard them howl for so long at one time, and since we stood at the base of the tree we were in, they were nice and loud. The recording doesn't come anywhere close to sounding like they do in person, but you can hear them a bit in this video:
I'm pretty sure that they were mourning our departure.
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