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