Week 9 - Costa Rica

This week sees me up bright and early to go for a walk up to Bolita. I was up at 5am, hoping to catch out any bugs that hadn’t hidden themselves away for the day. Unfortunately I didn’t catch any bugs, but I did catch a Green and Black Poison arrow frog to photograph, and had a beautiful walk through the rainforest.

A branch of the Rio Tigre that I had to cross

Rainforest trails

At the end of this week we are headed to Orlando, and while we are gone Steve will be looking after our animals. Steve is an old hand at animal husbandry, so he was fine with all the bugs we had for him to feed and water.

On Thursday we finally get to meet Armelle, Tristan’s girlfriend. She has been living and working in her native France for the past 6 months, and was nice to find out that she wasn’t a figment of Tristan’s imagination!

Friday marks the end of the first half of the shoot! As we will be away for a few days in Orlando, and out of the studio for more than a week, we removed all the plants and clear out the studio. We went out to dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant in Puerto Jimenez to celebrate.

Early Saturday morning we fly out of Puerto Jimenez via Sansa Regional light planes and arrive in San Jose 50 minutes later (so much better than a 7 hour drive!!) From San Jose we fly to Orlando, and arrive early evening to pick up our hire car and drive to our hotel. We are staying in Downtown Disney, and the girls are very excited (I admit, I am too!) as we will be visiting the Magic Kingdom at Disney World! We are staying in Orlando for 3 nights to renew our Costa Rican visa, before heading back to Puerto Jimenez for a week of bug collecting before the next half of the shoot begins.

All strapped in

The mountains of Costa Rica

At the Orlando airport, we pick up our tickets to the Magic Kingdom, and Tayen and Saige are crazy with excitement over all the Disney themed shops and photo opportunities. Disney princess merchandise is everywhere. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all….!

At the Orlando airport

Sunday we get up bright and early again ready for our adventure to the Magic Kingdom. At breakfast we meet Pluto the dog, who comes over to meet Tayen and Saige. Tayen is very shy and doesn’t want to get to close to Pluto, but Saige gets a cuddle! This is just a taste of things to come….

We decided that since we were spending so much money getting into the Magic Kingdom for a day, we were going to stay for the entire day. So we spend 12 hours going on rides, meeting Disney characters, dancing in the streets and walking through the various lands within Magic Kingdom. It is a magical experience, and I enjoyed it just as much (if not more!) than the kids did! The look on Tayen’s face when she first spotted Cinderella’s castle from the monorail was priceless!

We're here!

Cinderella's castle

Thank goodness I had done a bit of research before we arrived, and hired a stroller for our stay in Orlando. Disney World has strollers for hire but they are hard plastic and don’t recline. So we were all sorted, and away we went.

Our first stop was Fantasyland, and we had to walk the castle to get there. In Fantasy land we visited Snow White’s Scary Adventures (Alan’s choice because it was the first thing we saw and there were no queues!) Not the best thing for toddlers, I have to say! The girls were both terrified of the 3 minute ride!

Then it was on to the carousel – a nice friendly ride to calm the girls!

Flying over Fantasyland

The carousel

Saige is loving the Dumbo ride

We then headed to Adventureland where we went on the Jungle Cruise (another one that wasn’t too popular with the kids, but that Alan and I loved) and then on to the Magic Carpets of Aladdin.

Some pretty realistic Hippos

On the Jungle Cruise 

On a magic carpet ride!

There were a few characters I wanted…I mean the girls wanted to meet! The first up was Ariel and Eric from The Little Mermaid, who I thought Tayen would be in raptures over. However, it turns out that Tayen was overly shy, and didn’t really want to get close to or have a photo taken with her favourite Disney princess. Then it was on to Tinkerbell and her friend Terrance, Buzz Lightyear, Woody and Jessie from Toy Story (where Saige was excited because Jessie had touched her nose!), and of course the Disney princesses Cinderella, Belle and Sleeping Beauty. Tayen got the hang of it all pretty quickly after seeing Ariel, so decided to join in the fun!

Ariel and Eric

Tink

To infinity and beyond!

"Jessie touched my nose!"

Saige telling me all about it

With Cinderella

Belle from Beauty and the Beast

Aurora from Sleeping Beauty

We went to the ‘Dream Along with Mickey Show’ which was an open air theatre performance, and also the ‘Move it shake it celebrate it – street party’ where there was singing and dancing (a lot of it by me) and where Saige was pulled from the crowd to dance with Donald Duck, only to get scared and come running back to us! I brought her back to a disheartened Donald Duck, who kissed Saige’s hand. Saige said “He put my hand in his mouth!”

So excited!

Saige strutting her stuff in her new hat

Street Party!

Saige walks away from a disheartened Donald Duck

Then there were more rides to go on, and things to see. We went on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and Monster’s Inc. Laugh floor (a very funny interactive digital show) in Tomorrowland, and the Mad Tea Party tea cups and the Adventures on Winnie the Pooh in Fantasyland. The only adult ride Alan and I got Fast Passes for (where you can skip the queues to come back at a later time) was Splash Mountain, but when we returned at our allocated time, the ride had broken down. We were able to go back later when the ride had been fixed, but by then there was even a queue in the Fast Pass lane, so we gave it a miss.

Tomorrowland

The 'must have' photo!

In between all this, we fit in lunch, and were continually walking from one land to another and back again. We were disappointed that the street parade was cancelled due to inclement weather (a few drops of rain and some lightning, boo hoo!) but apart from that we had an amazing day. It end in spectacular Disney fashion with ‘The Magic, The  Memories and You’ photo, light and music show projected onto the Cinderella Castle, and with the ‘Wishes nighttime spectacular’ complete with fireworks. It was just magical, and the whole day the girls were so excited about everything (apart from when they were dozing in the stroller!)

Fireworks at the castle

Night lights, and the kids are still awake!

On the downside, we couldn’t believe how many people were there and how much money is made and spent in one day alone in the world of Disney. In light of how many people are in need around the world, it was a little sickening seeing so much money spent on entertainment. Hypocritical of me I know since I was contributing to it all, but it certainly did hit us.

Week 8 - Costa Rica

Filming is almost half way through. Our schedule has us filming for 6 weeks, then a break week and then another 6 weeks of filming. The break week is the time when Alan and I make sure we have enough animals to last the next 6 weeks of filming, so it’s not really a break for us. However, sue to that fact we only have 3 months on our visa, we need to leave the country for 72 hours to renew the visa. We were thinking that we might visit Panama for a few days, but the production company has decided we are going to the USA. So Orlando it is, and we need to organise our flights. So early this week, Mylene and I put our heads together to work out when and how.

I took the girls to the beach in Puerto Jimenez on Monday morning, where they were happy building sandcastles and playing in the water for a few hours. Monday was a public holiday for Mother’s Day, so I was hoping to bonus an extra present this year, or at least breakfast in bed or dinner, but it wasn’t to be!

Tayen and Saige on the beach in Jimenez

This week is again full of animal adventures. We went up the public walking trail in Dos Brazos, and I saw my first terciopello and a coral snake. We also went out to the road we had found on the weekend after work on Tuesday, only to find that the road had been fenced off, and most of the rainforest on either side bulldozed! This kind of thing happens to us a lot. Nearly every person we see walking along the roads is carrying a machete, and they seem to slash every bush and shrub along the side of the road. Our neighbour Oscar is great at this. The road outside our house used to be full and bushy until about 3 weeks after we arrived when Oscar thought he would clear the road. Even after repeated requests for him to leave it (which he cheerfully agrees to) we still find him slashing the plants back on either side of the road. Still we searched the road heading out to Matapalo, and found a few interesting things alaong the way.

Tayen ready for bug hunting!

A juvenile Green Iguana, one of 6 we found asleep in a tree

The power is out for most of the day on Wednesday, and Alan surprises me by coming home from the studio at 10:30am. The power is out in Pto. Jimenez as well, and stays out all day. Malcolm and Mylene come out to our place for dinner, and stay to do a night shoot in our garden of the fire-bellied orb-weaver that has set up in one of our trees. They film until just before midnight.

Tayen is such a good wildlife spotter. She has found quite a few bugs that we have needed, as well as knowing the calls of the macaws and chestnut-mandibled toucans. She races outside every time she hears them. On Wednesday she was wildlife spotting again, eyeing some squirrel monkeys playing in the trees in the front of our property. So we all raced down there to have a closer look. Sure enough there were around 6 of them chattering to each other and jumping from tree to tree. It was magical to see. Unfortunately we couldn't get a photo.

The girls took some time out to do something they had never done before, but something I had grown up doing – running through a sprinkler!!

Having fun in the sprinkler

Fire Ants. These tiny ants are everywhere on our property, and you almost can’t walk anywhere without getting stung by them. There seem to be varying strengths of stings, depending on the kind of fire ant you get stung by. I’ve seen grown men run screaming while they were slapping their legs. Poor little Tayen was stung this week by 9 ants on the one foot, and the actual sting hurts, but then after around 30 seconds the fire begins, and it feels like you are burning. So far this has been the worst thing we have experienced in Costa Rica!

This week we are feeling rather stressed at how many animals we still need to collect for shooting. The invertebrate diversity in Dos Brazos seems to have reached a plateau. We are still finding lots of bugs, but all of them we have either used before, or can’t use as they aren’t predators. We need to find some different habitats to find a greater diversity of bugs. Who would have thought it in Costa Rica!!

The weekend brings a few exciting things our way. Carlos and his wife Roci have been keeping an eye out for wildlife for us, as they know we want to see as much as possible. So Saturday they come over with the cutest bundle of fur I have seen – it is a baby 3 toed sloth! We have been hanging out to see a sloth, and this one we actually get to hold. We are so excited and I can’t keep the grin off my face!

Who wouldn't love that face?

Too cute!

Sunday it is party time! We have missed/will miss out on so many birthdays of family members that we decided to have a party to celebrate. We bake a cake, sing happy birthday, play pass the parcel and have a great time! Happy birthday to Tamara, Kristen, Grandpa (Garry), Oma (Yvonne), Pake (John), Oscar, Annie, Laura, Aliyah, Robbie, Emily, Adam and Tayen's friend Willow.

Saige is helping with the clean-up!

Icing the cake

Icing (frosting) in a tub!

The finished product

Party time!

Playing with pass the parcel prizes!

And hooray!! We have internet that works at home! It is so unbelievable, I almost don’t want to jinx it by saying that it works! Tristan managed to get an internet key in San Jose that is compatible with ICE (the telecommunication company in Costa Rica) and it has a aerial strong enough to pick up the signal from the towers! It has only taken 2 months, which for Costa Rica is not too bad, apparently!

Week 7 - Costa Rica

This week I didn't take many photos of our adventures, so to make this post a lot less boring, I've put some random shots of our time in Costa Rica that have absolutely nothing to do with this post!

On Monday we all drove into the Studio so that I could continue building orb-weaving spider frames after the power outage. This took a while, as the silicone we had bought wouldn’t bond to either the wood bases or the branches. So we resorted to using craft glue instead, which worked but took a while to dry in the high humidity. While I waited for them to dry, I took the girls to the playground. While I was gone our lift trolley finally arrived from the US. It had been sitting in Customs in Costa Rica for weeks, and then there were issues with getting it transported down to Puerto Jimenez. But it finally arrived! I wasn’t there when the box was opened and it was discovered that we actually had the wrong one – we were meant to order a pneumatic lift trolley that moved from ground level to over a meter high. What arrived was a lift table, that didn’t lower to the ground. This was disappointing, after waiting for so long for it! However, it would have to do, and at least it had a bit of movement capability compared to the table we were using from Mal and Mylene’s house.

The tree line above our house - a sight that I will miss

We did a bit of animal collecting this week, going out with Carlos and Steve up some local trails, mainly a trail that goes up the mountain behind Dos Brazos known to locals as the public trail. It is a wide track that is lined with mountainous rainforest on one side, and a decent drop on the other side! We’ve found quite a few invertebrates up this trail, including spiders, katydids, vinegaroons, stick insects, amblypygids, centipedes and more! We’ve also seen quite a few reptiles and frogs out this way, including blunt-headed tree snakes, terciopelos, cat-eyed snakes, and jungle mountain frogs, among other things.

Alan in his poncho ready for a night of bug collecting in the rain

A Masked Tree frog, the same species as the tadpoles we are raising

A yellow moth that Tayen spotted

Tuesday was my mum’s birthday back in Australia, so I managed to log onto skype and have a little chat with her, before the connection got so bad we couldn’t understand each other. The signal is always better when there are clouds overhead; clear blue days are not good for internet signal over here!

A harem of White lined bats (Saccopteryx bilineata) living in the eaves of our  guest house

These bats live in harems of one male and up to 8 females. This male has 5 females.

We all went into the studio on Wednesday to repair the orb frames, which weren’t holding up too well in the humidity. I was getting very frustrated at the fact that they weren’t working, and that the spiders were setting up their webs everywhere but the frames! It was also very difficult to work trying to supervise Tayen and Saige as well, and with the heat of the day I was not a happy camper! We all went out to Carolina's for lunch, where the crew at least are regulars now. Our Spanish is getting better, and we are now able to understand a lot more and hold at least the beginnings of a conversation with our Hola’s, como esta’s, muy bien gracias’s, y usted’s, por favor’s, and mucho gusto’s. We don’t have a lot of opportunity to speak Spanish in Dos Brazos as most of the people we have contact with speak English as well.

Tayen using Bronte as a pillow after a day out

That afternoon there was a massive thunderstorm in Puerto Jimenez, and the downpour created floods outside the studio in minutes. The tiles just outside the studio are very slippery when wet, and are extremely dangerous. Both Alan and myself have nearly gone head over heels before, so it was no surprise when Saige did. I wasn’t watching closely enough and let her go around the corner, where the tiles had been directly exposed to the rain. When Saige fell, she cracked her head on the tiles with such force that I heard it before she started screaming. She was still inconsolable an hour later, so it was off to the doctors. We had checked that her pupils were still dilating, and she had had a short snooze and was still very upset. The doctor confirmed that there was no concussion, but he still wanted to keep her for observation – for 4 hours!! It was 6:30pm when we arrived at the doctors, so we would have to stay until 10:30pm. A bed was set up for Saige, and Alan went to the supermarket to get some food as we hadn’t had dinner yet. After 20 minutes, Saige was herself again, sitting up and playing with Tayen. After another 40 minutes of her playing and laughing with Tayen, we realised that she would be fine, so we found the doctor (this itself took around 10 minutes) and he agreed that we could take her home.

Saige and I out to dinner

Tayen has been missing her friends at kindergarten back home, and is constantly drawing pictures and making cards for her friend Willow. Both Tayen and Saige have been playing ‘kinder’ and each pretend to be either Willow or another friend, Beatrice. I will often call to them for lunch and have them say, “I’m not Tayen, I’m Willow!”, and Saige saying “I’m not Saige, I’m Beatrice!”

A cool tree I found at Playa Tamales

The weekend saw us heading on the road towards Matapalo, in search for good collecting sites for invertebrates. The road is really bad, so it was slow going for a while. We found a side road that has the potential to be a great night hunting spot, so we decided to go back there after dark one day next week. We also picked up some Golden Orb weaving spiders (or Banana Spiders as they are called here) and some nice Argiope spiders with silvery spiky abdomens)

Saige holding a Costa Rican Red-rumped tarantula

And to top off the week, we are borrowing Tristan’s internet key again while he is away. He will hopefully be getting another one that is compatible with ICE while he is in San Jose. Meantime Steve is seeing if he can swap our ICE issued internet key with another one that may have a better aerial in it for picking up the signal at our house. The saga continues!!