Week 5 - Costa Rica

Dos Brazos del Rio Tigre, the village where we are staying, is nestled in the Reserva Forestal Golfo Dolce, a protected area that provides a buffer zone around the Parque Nacional Corcovado. It is formally a gold mining town, and the population grew exponentially back in its day as gold diggers came to claim their fortunes. Some locals still pan for gold in the streams and rivers, and we can hear them tuning over and smashing rocks in the river searching for the illusive vein of gold. There are a few locals who know exactly where to look, and travel further up the river close to the Parque Nacional Corcovado, coming home at the end of the day with thousands of dollars in gold. However most miners only find a few dollars worth at most. It is only legal to search for gold by hand or by sluice, without using any machinery of any kind. The local environment officers here, MINAET, keep a close eye on gold mining activities, and have been known to shoot anyone not doing the right thing!

The main road of Dos Brazos. The blue building is the school

One of the 3 shops in Dos Brazos - this is a small grocery store, there is another one that is similar, and there is a soda, a small eatery.

In the Henderson household this week, Saige is feeling a lot better, which is such a relief. It was very hard for her having to go through so much pain to use the toilet.

Its tax time back in Australia, and I had to complete my quarterly BAS, so I spent some time on Monday doing all the sums. As I have not registered to complete them online, I send through the figures to Mum and Dad back in Australia to fill in the forms and send them off.

The Minibeast Wildlife van back in Australia is sick. Its engine blew up last week just as one of our staff, Sue, was on her way to a school to run some presentations. Thankfully we have great staff in Victoria to sort it all out for us. It cost quite a bit to get it fixed, as is the way when cars break down, so thanks to Mum and Dad for a short-term loan!

On Wednesday Tayen, Saige and I caught the yellow bus into Puerto Jimenez to have lunch with Alan, Malcolm and Mylene (the film crew) and to do some grocery shopping. Our pneumatic trolley, which we will use to put the sets on, still have not arrived from San Jose, where it is sitting in customs waiting to be cleared. At the moment we are using the table from Malcolm and Mylene’s house!

Tayen and Saige on the bus

That night I head out with Carlos up to Bolita to do some bug hunting. We really need another Velvet worm, but unfortunately we were unable to find one. We did see lots of Army ants on their march through the rainforest, 3 Northern Cat-eyed snakes and a Granular Poison Arrow frog, the first one we’ve seen. On the way back down, there was a strange animal call coming from not too far away. At first I thought it was a frog, but Carlos told me it was a jaguar! I was sure that any minute it was about to emerge from the forest right in front of me, it sounded that close. Jaguars are rarely sighted in Costa Rica, and Carlos has only ever seen one in his 30-odd years living here.

I caught the Granular Poison Arrow frog to take some photos of it.

Alan's photo if the Granular Poison Arrow frog

When we left Australia, my mum gave be what should have been 4 months worth of Dutch licorice. It was all my favourites – herrings, salmiak balls, salmiak logs and giant diamonds. This week I finished the last of them, and I really don’t know how I’ll survive the next three months without any!!

Power outages are a common thing here; we have at least one power failure every week, and they can last from half an hour to several hours. We always have candles and torches around just in case. So it was no surprise when on Thursday night the power went out. What did surprise me was the severity of the storm. Power outages aren’t always a result of storms; sometimes there is no apparent reason for them. But this storm came up fast and was ferocious! The winds were so strong that our entire undercover porch was flooded as the rain was coming right in. And Alan was out in it! He had left the house to go bug hunting around half an hour before hand, and it wasn’t long before I saw him trudging up the steps leading up to the house – he was completely soaked, and couldn’t have been more wet if he had stepped straight out of the bath!

After the storm, Friday dawned bright and cheery (and hot!). After all that rain, Tayen and Saige’s pool had filled with water, and the Masked tree frogs that had been frequenting the pool to call each night had gone the extra step and laid eggs in the pool! So we now have hundreds of tadpoles swimming around in the pool, and we can’t empty it out!

Masked Frog tadpoles in the pool

That night I went out bug hunting with Carlos to a property that belongs to Steve’s brother. It has both secondary and primary rainforest on the property, so I was excited to see primary rainforest as most of the rainforest around Dos Brazos is secondary. We came back with quite a collection of invertebrates to use for filming, including a large male Red-rumped tarantula which I managed to catch myself. We also saw massive colonies of leaf cutter ants, glass frogs, and walked right beneath a tree of howler monkeys. In the darkness I wasn’t able to see them very well, apart from their wide yellow eyes reflecting in the torch light blinking down at me.

The weekend was taken up with building sets for next weeks shoot. We are going to be filming ambylpygids, which live on clay and rock walls in the rainforest. Alan had bought some large sheets of Polystyrene, so we were all helping out with creating realistic wall faces. It was a lot of messy fun! We also had to build some frames for orb-weaving spiders to build their webs on.

Carving into the polystyrene

Having fun!

The inevitable result!

The next step - gluing and throwing on sand and rocks

The finished product

Making the bases for the orb weaving spider frames

Saturday night we had our first production dinner, where we go out with all the people involved in the shoot. We went to a nice little restaurant on the beach with Steve, Mal and Mylene.

Sunset over Puerto Jimenez

And on the last night of this week, Sunday night, Alan went out bug hunting to Bolita on his own. He found a tericopello (fer-de-lance snake) sitting right on the path, ready to strike, and decided that he probably shouldn’t go so far again on his own, just in case!

Week 4 - Costa Rica

This is the week that the filming begins, and sanity ends!

Monday is the first day of filming, and it mostly goes to plan, apart from some power shortages and fuses blowing due to the difference in wattage between Costa Rica and Australia. Today we shot Cone-headed katydids against Owl butterfly caterpillars. Alan will now be working at the studio from 8am till 6pm Monday to Friday.

The Mini Mall where the studio is located

The set

Malcom frames a shot

Tayen, Saige and I head into Puerto Jimenez with Alan Monday morning to go to the doctors again as Saige’s urinary infection has not improved, and she screams in pain while she is on the toilet. As a result she is not going when she needs to, holding on for as long as possible and so has resorted to peeing her pants. We waited at the doctors for 2 hours, as it’s a first in first served clinic, and Monday mornings are very busy! We saw a different doctor this time, who managed to get me to understand that Saige doesn’t have a urinary infection, but a fungal infection. It’s actually quite amusing as they didn’t know how to say ‘fungal’ in English. In Spanish, it’s hongo, and the best they could do was mushroom! I happened to disagree with the doctor about the fungal infection, but she took away Saige’s antibiotics. I had bought them in to show the doctor what Saige was taking to say that they weren’t working. The doctor prescribed Saige some creams instead. The medical clinic in Pto. Jimenez doesn’t have the facilities to analyse samples; to do that we would need to go to the hospital in Golfito, across the Golfo Dulce.

We took the yellow public bus home from Pto. Jimenez – the girls thought it was great! It travels between Pto. Jimenez and Dos Brazos three times a day, and its nice knowing that I’m not stuck at home all day while Alan has the car at the studio. The bus took around 40 minutes to get to Dos Brazos, then a 25 minute walk home (quicker if I carry Saige!). By car the trip takes around 25 minutes.

Tayen and Saige in front of the yellow bus!

Tuesday and Wednesday we stayed at home, apart from walking up to Steve’s to use his internet connection to check emails. Steve also lent us some larger enclosures to keep herbivorous katydids in, among other things.

Thursday sees us going back to the doctor, as Saige was a lot worse. The creams she was prescribed did nothing, and it is really distressing for everyone to see her in so much pain when on the toilet. We planned to take the midday bus into town, but it didn’t turn up so we got a lift with a local who was travelling into Pto. Jimenez. We also picked up a few other people on the way who were waiting for the bus. We had some lunch with Alan then headed to the clinic. After around an hour wait, we saw yet another doctor (the third in a many visits). After seeing my tears of frustration at not being able to communicate our previous visits and diagnoses, the doctor found someone who could speak English to translate for us. The doctor agreed that Saige had an infection, but as there is no pathology lab in Jimenez, I had to take samples to Golfito to test. He suggested taking a sample right then, then giving Saige a shot of antibiotics, then taking another sample that next day. This sounded fine to me, but the clinic didn’t have any sample cups. So the doctor told me to go to the supermarket to get two Gerber jars. Not knowing what they were or where to find them, I asked a staff member who led me to the baby food section – I needed to buy 2 baby food jars to put Saige’s samples in!! I got back to the doctors with the jars where they were cleaned and hopefully sterilised before the sample was taken, then Saige was put on an IV antibiotic drip. Saige didn’t like being jabbed one bit, and was screaming and crying for around 10 minutes afterwards. I also fell to bits, trying to be strong for Saige so she would see it was all ok, but I only managed to talk to her calmly while tears were running down my face. And then Tayen wanted to watch what was going on and getting upset at all the commotion, so it was awful for all of us. I kept thinking about needle related diseases, and praying that all the equipment had been sterilised properly! I called Alan to let him know what was going on, and he came to the clinic when he had finished work for the day. Saige was on the IV drip for close to 2 hours. We got home at 8:30pm, thoroughly exhausted.

Saige hooked up to the IV drip

I-phones are a great distraction!

Friday morning we all got up early to catch the ferry across to the Golfito hospital. Saige seemed to have much less pain already, so I was hopeful that her infection had cleared up. We had decided that I would be fine to travel across with the girls, and that Alan would go into work. So we just made the ferry, and Tayen was happy to stand and watch the tropical blue and yellow fish swimming below the boat before we got going. The trip across took around 20 minutes in the fast ferry (around an hour in the slow ferry). We took a taxi to the hospital, and when we got there I once again had the problem of translating what I needed to do. Saige’s sample from the day before has been kept in the fridge overnight, and I now had it on ice. I also had her sample from that morning, and I had to find the lab to get the samples analysed. I first went to the emergency department as I though someone there might speak English, but they didn’t. As I had the samples and the accompanying forms, they directed me to the pathology lab. Once there, I was directed to the pharmacia to have the sample forms stamped. I then headed back to the pathology lab to put the samples in. I managed to convey that there were two samples, one taken the day before, (before Saige had taken antibiotics), and then one sample taken this morning. I got the general idea that the man at the lab was saying that they couldn’t test the sample taken yesterday. Fortunately there was a man who spoke English passing by that heard that I was having trouble communicating. He stopped and offered to be our translator. Apparently they could only test samples that had been taken within the hour of receiving them. I tried to explain that the samples had been refrigerated, and that the doctor in Jimenez said that it would be fine, but they still refused. The English speaking man told me that he was going to get a doctor who spoke English to help us out. When the doctor arrived, he thankfully told the lab staff that as the samples had been kept cold, they would be fine to test. The doctor asked me to stay and wait for around 20 minuted while the samples were tested to see if Saige needed any more antibiotics. I was so relieved that everything had been sorted, and that we had found a lovely doctor to help us out! The tests showed that Saige still had a urinary infection, so would still need some oral antibiotics. So it was back onto the ferry (the slow one this time; we all had a snooze!) and back to the clinic in Pto. Jimenez to let the doctors know the results of the tests, and to pick up some oral antibiotics. Hopefully that is the last we’ll see of the medical clinic for a while!

And to end the week, some good news! Tristan is going away on holidays for a while, so he has let us borrow his internet key – we finally have internet at home, although temporarily! Tristan also came over to take us out bug hunting, but after the week we’ve had, neither Alan or I have felt up to bug hunting at all this week.

On the weekend, Alan and I move our animal collection into the guest house, as it is much cooler in there during the day and our house has been getting really hot. When I look after the animals each day, I will just take the girls down to the guest house with me.

Alan moving all the dangerous spiders!

Our animal collection in the guest house

I make some play dough with Tayen and Saige on Sunday to give them something else to play with. I couldn't quite remember the recipe, but we worked it out eventually! With the high humidity here it gets very sloppy by the end of the day, and we constantly need to add more flour to it. The girls are very excited to have a new toy!

Week 3 - Costa Rica

This week is full of frustrations, as things just don’t seem to be going our way!

It started out with me heading out on my first night bug hunting trip with Tristan. We headed towards Bolita with one aim – to find a velvet worm (anything else I found was a bonus). Alan had found two velvet worms last week; one brown and the other a purple-grey colour with a white stripe behind its head. Both were around 5-8cm long. Alan was really disappointed as the one with the white stripe had managed to escape through the airholes in it’s enclosure – being soft bodied they can mould their body to any shape. As it was, Tristan and I made it up to Bolita, had a look around the back where the tents were for some scorpions, then headed back down again without having seen a velvet worm. But then, there it was! It was huge, and moving across the face of a clay wall rapidly to find a hole to shelter in. Tristan and I managed to capture it, and I was estatic! This Velvet worm was about 15cm long, and I felt like I had earned my keep! We also found some amblypygids, spiders, lots of frogs, mud crabs and more.

Tayen holding the Velvet Worm

Both Tayen and Saige have been a bit sick this week, with both of them coughing and Saige having a urinary infection. We head to the doctor for Saige with my trusty Spanish Phrase book. I have memorised “Noestra hija esta enferma” (our daughter is sick) and “orina infeccion” (urine infection), “dos anos” (2 years old), and “mucho dolor” (much pain). The doctor speaks a little English, so we managed to understand each other enough for him to prescribe some antibiotics. Health care for tourists in Costa Rica is free, basically because they don’t have the system to deal with foreigners. Our medications were free as well.

On Monday our internet USB is still not in. Last week we were told that there was no room for them on the truck (because USB keys are so HUGE!). This week we are told that there are none in the warehouse, so yet another delay! So it’s still off to Steve’s rancho to use his internet connection to pay our Minibeast Wildlife staff back in Australia and to check emails, and to email my sister Tamara, whose birthday it is on Sunday!

The howler monkeys seem to be calling more often now, or maybe it’s because we now recognise them, but both Tayen and Saige have been able to hear them as they are calling both morning and evening now. Tayen did a drawing of a howler monkey for her cousin Joah.

Tayen's drawing of a howler monkey

We now have quite a large collection of animals which will be used for filming the TV series. They take a bit of time each day feeding and watering them, which, once filming begins, will be my job as Alan will be on set every day.

Our animal collection so far consisting of spiders, katydids,  velvet worms, beetles,  amblypygids, and more!

We have heard and read about another ‘bug person’ living on the Osa Peninsula at Drake Bay, so we head out early on Thursday to see if we can meet her. After a few wrong turns (and wasting about an hour and a half!) we finally find the right road, only to find that in the heavy rain that has fallen the last 24 hours, there a quite a few river crossings. The first is just a small one, the second one wider and slightly deeper, and the third one completely impassable for us with 2 small children in the car. After assisting an Austrian couple across this particular river, and hearing from them that there were more and larger rivers to come after this one, we decided to turn back. There is something going on with these third rivers that keep turning us back! A local man also told us that in the rainy season these rivers rise extremely quickly, and are mostly impassable for 4 months of the year! Supplies in and out of Drake Bay come by boat during this time, as the road we were on is the only road in. At least we had another adventure!

One of our river crossings on the way to Drake Bay

Our wrong turn ended in the end of the road, with only a footbridge to cross the raging river.

Flooding after the heavy rains

A large iguana we found on the side of the road, though not a great photo!

 On Friday Malcome and Mylene, the camera crew, arrive from San Jose, where they have been held up nearly all week waiting for their equipment to clear customs and for the pneumatic trolley that we will use for putting the set on to turn up. When they find out on Thursday that it is still in the US, they decide to head to Puerto Jimenez on Friday, only to be told that the trolley arrived in San Jose 4 hours after they left! We will need to get it transported to Pto. Jimenez somehow! They spend the weekend setting up the studio.

We also get some great news on Friday – Our USB internet key has arrived! Alan takes Steve into town to pick it up, as Steve’s organisation needs to sign up the connection for us. Once in town with USB key in hand, Steve realises he has left his passport and organisation documents back in Dos Brazos, so Alan takes him back straight away. It is about 4pm at this time. With the necessary documents in hand, Steve heads into ICE, the telecommunication company here in Costa Rica. He emerges 15 minutes later fuming, as we have been sold an internet key that has already been registered in another name, and cannot be re-registered! Steve heads back to the store we bought it from and find the police there, chatting to the staff. He apparently berates the staff for what has happened, and gets the police involved. Unfortunately, not a lot can be done, as the staff only know that the USB key came from the warehouse. So it’s back to square one after thinking this saga was almost all over. Add to that the fact that Steve’s organisational documents expire next week, and he will have to get them renewed in order to set up out internet (if ever that happens!) and the fun starts all over again!

The weekend is full of building the set for the animals to be filmed on, which Alan does mostly at Steve’s as he has all the necessary tools. We also go to a local nursery to pick up some plants to create the set (although most have been taken from our property and the side of the road). Tayen and Saige meet some girls to play with while we are at the nursery, as well as their 2 puppies, and the two Tica girls are soon picking Saige up to cuddle her – who could resist her really!

It has been raining here nearly every afternoon, and is actually very wet for this time of the year, more like October weather. This makes it very hard to collect animals, and Alan has some very wet nights out! Among other things, he did manage to catch a Helmeted iguana to take some photos of it.

Alan's boots are full of water after a night out bug hunting 

The Helmeted iguana

 Filming begins on Monday, so everything is moved to the studio, and our preparation room next to it. The animals will be kept at our house though, so I am able to better look after them without having to travel into Pto. Jimenez every day. One of the first animals that will be shot is some Owl Butterfly caterpillars. Tayen and Saige have adopted these as their pets, so we will have some butterflies to release in the next few weeks!

And to end the week, the girls and I got all domestic and made a banana cake to get rid of some bananas. We have soooo many bananas growing here it’s not funny! And so many kinds too. We have banana manzanas (apple bananas), a red skinned one and one other kind that I’m not sure of. We also have pineapples, lychees, bread fruit, lemons, guava, star fruit and mangos growing around the property.

Week 2 - Costa Rica

This week has been full of adventure, as you would expect when on location in a remote tropical rainforest!

Alan’s collecting efforts were rewarded with lots of spiders! He collected a few different kinds of wandering spiders, including a species of Brazilian Wandering Spider - some species in this genus are reported to be the most venomous spiders in the world! A man in the village here in Dos Brazos got bitten on the hand by one of these spiders last year, and he was begging for someone to cut his arm off to get rid of the pain! The doctors didn’t even have to ask what kind of spider he was bitten by, as the pain said it all!

The infamous Brazilian Wandering Spider

We have had more issues with burst water pipes, as Alan found a fountain emerging from the ground behind the storage house at the front of the property. Fortunately that particular water pipe belonged to the guest house so that the water remained on in our house.

As we have no internet at the house yet, we’ve been travelling into Puerto Jimenez regularly to visit internet cafes. On Tuesday we had lunch at a café on the bay beach of Pto. Jimenez. The sand is black and very hot, and both Tayen and Saige were happy to build sand castles and collect the few shells and coral that they found. As you would expect they both were covered in sand, and black sand really stands out!

There is no bath at the house we are staying at, and Saige hates getting water in her ears so giving her a shower has been a bit of a nightmare! So at the local supermercado, BM (pronounced bee-em’e) Corcovado we bought the exact same blow-up pool we have at home in Kuranda! This way they get to have some fun and get clean!

Tayen and Saige lounging in their pool (the wine glasses with juice was Alan's idea!)

We saw (and heard!) some pretty amazing wildlife this week. While out bug searching during the day, Alan found a small lichen coloured eyelash viper on a palm on the road at the front of our house, so we all went to have a look at it. The later that evening, he found a yellow form eyelash viper in a tree in our back yard! Both were gone the next day. Alan also managed to catch a small basilisk lizard to show us, as well as a red-eyed tree frog.

Alan holding the basilisk and red-eyed tree frog

The red-eyed tree frog decides to take a leap onto my face!

Saige is captivated by the frog

Alan went into Pto. Jimenez to go to the hardware shop to start building the sets for filming. He came back with a little boa constrictor that had been in someone’s car! It was really quiet, so we all had a hold, even the girls!

The little boa constrictor was really quiet and easily handled

And early on Thursday morning, at around 4:30am, we heard Howler monkeys calling for the first time! Apparently they call nearly every morning, but as we’re not usually up at this time, we hadn’t heard them until now. Tayen has made me promise to wake her next time we hear them.

And we are seeing Green iguanas everywhere! We didn’t see one for a while, and now we can’t go somewhere without seeing one! Tayen spotted a huge one in the middle of Dos Brazos as we were driving past, but when we stopped to get out, it had gone. Then we saw whole families of them on the road into Pto. Jimenez, and right in town, just outside the bank, a large grey and green iguana slowly crossed the road before climbing a tree. We have yet to get a good photo of one though.

And while I was doing some day time bug searching at the back of our property (which is rainforest) and I turned around to see a White-nosed Coati wandering up from our back yard. I crept slowly after it, but it had just melted away into the rainforest.

While playing in the newly acquired pool, Saige got stung by a wasp on her eyebrow. Lucky there was no major swelling or lasting pain, and she was very brave!

Tritan took us for a walk up to the Amazonita, the house we were going to be staying in. I have never been more thankful that we are not staying there! It would have been fantastic to stay in if we didn’t have kids! The living area is all open plan with no external walls, and what would have been the girls’ bedroom is the same. Two single beds with no walls! I would have really been freaking out that the girls would have been bitten by a snake or stung by a scorpion when they got up at night, and we would have ended up all sleeping in the one room. The master bedroom had walls, but a huge window with no screens, so just as likely to let animals in, not to mention all the biting insects like mozzies and no-see-ums (biting midges). Tristan used to live here, and he said that every night he would go around an check under the beds for snakes and scorpions, and end up sitting in bed under his mosquito net for protection before going to sleep! So I am very thankful we aren’t staying there! We also had a look at the other house that Tristan care takes, the Casa Aire Libre, which is another open air house with multiple stories that looks very tropical and would be great to stay in for short periods of time.

We still have no internet at home. The store in town that sells the USB internet key told us they would definitely have more in stock this week. But when we went in, they told us there wasn’t room for them on the truck. They only keep 2 or 3 in stock at a time, and a USB key isn’t exactly huge. It would have fit in the truck driver’s pocket! So we have to wait yet another week and continue to use Steve’s connection or go into town.

Tristan found a large Terciopello in the property next to ours while he was cutting the grass, and so Alan went to photograph it. Unfortunately It had sheltered beneath some dense scrub bushes, so Alan couldn’t get a good photo, but he managed to scare it onto our side of the property!

On the weekend we took the opportunity to check out some different habitat sites to search for different animals. So we took a drive towards Matapalo, a coastal town west of Pto. Jimenez. Although it is the only road to Matapalo, it was very badly potholed and as it had been raining very heavily, the road ended up being impassable. There were several river crossings necessary, and when we got to the third and saw it was a raging torrent, we decided to go back! Although we did watch with interest a local pick-up truck with a family standing in the back make their way through fairly successfully. Instead, we pulled off at a little beach called Playa Tamales, where we spotted some Golden orb-weaving spiders and a racoon! There were lots of hermit crabs for the girls to have some fun with, and lots of shells to collect for decorating sand castles!

Playa Tamales

A walk on the beach