Hendersons Hilarities: Week 10

While in Orlando, we were staying at the Buena Vista Palace in Downtown Disney. So on Monday, after our huge day at the Magic Kingdom, we have a day swimming in the pool, playing at the playground and doing not all that much. We went out to dinner with Mal and Mylene to Rainforest Café in Downtown Disney.

More photo opportunities with princesses!

Downtown Disney. The giant Stitch was spitting out water

Tayen and I getting spat on by Stitch!

A giraffe outside the Rainforest Cafe

Inside the Rainforest Cafe (which was also a souvenir shop)

Tracy the Talking Tree - Saige was terrified of her!

We were up early on Tuesday as we are due to fly out to San Jose. The girls were tired from our few days away, so they slept through most of the flight, which was nice! We arrive in San Jose and have to stay overnight until our domestic flight to Puerto Jimenez on Wednesday. We got some lunch from a local panaderia (bakery) and hangout at our hotel (The Trapp family Inn), walking around the gardens looking for bugs and watching a bit of television (which we don’t have at all in Dos Brazos, so it’s a bit strange sitting in front of the TV after so long!)

Arriving back to our hotel in Orlando

Tayen excited because their new toys Woody and Jessie had moved from where she had put them - "They talked!!"

The flight from San Jose to Pto. Jimenez was quick and easy compared to a 7 hour drive! We arrived back home to find an email announcing the arrival of a new nephew – Robbie and Emily have a new baby boy – Archer Ben. He was born on the 1^st September, a day after Annie’s birthday and a shared birthday with our niece, Laura. Tayen and Saige are excited to have a new cousin!

Archer Ben Henderson

We still had a week of animal collecting time before filming starts again, so Alan organised to go to the Osa Conservation Organisation (Friends of the Osa) research station to go collecting actually within the Corcovado National Park. He was staying there with Steve, and they are away for 2 nights. This means that the girls and I were without a car, which was a little daunting since we are so far away from town.

Alan gets rained out the first night he was away so doesn’t find all that much. He met a few other people who were staying there researching various animals. One guy in particular was searching for a micro bat species, and he found a colony right outside his cabina! The second night Alan was away was a bit drier so he and Steve managed to find some animals to use on set.

Alan arrived home on Saturday afternoon, and was looking forward to catching up on the footy scores that he had missed the night before. We don’t have the best internet connection here at home, so we haven’t been able to stream any live games, but Alan was able to listen to ABC radio for past games. The best we could do after the game was to search Youtube, and he managed to find half the game and the highlights. He was very happy to learn that the Cats had won over Collingwood in the last game prior to the finals.

As I’ve mentioned before Tayen is such a good wildlife spotter. On Saturday afternoon she raced out the front door, shouting that there were Macaws close by. She said that she had heard them and thought they might be in our backyard. Well, she was right! We had 4 Macaws in a tree in our backyard, the closest we had seen them land yet. They are such magnificent birds!

Saturday night Alan went out bug hunting with Tristan and Armelle, and after talking to them about searching for bugs in different habitats, we decide to take a road trip to north western Costa Rica, on the Nicoya Peninsula. It will take us a whole day to get there, so we plan to leave early the next morning.

Sunday was Father’s Day back in Australia, so while Alan was away Tayen, Saige and I made him some cards and the girls did some drawings for him. We presented them to him on Sunday morning, before getting ready to leave on our road trip. As things normally go with the Henderson’s, we got a later than expected start at 9:30am. After an 8 hour drive (with at least one wrong turn off the freeway!) we arrive in Puntarenas where we need to catch a ferry across the Gulfo de Nicoya to Paquera. We arrive in Paquera at 6:30pm, then decide to drive a little further to check out the habitat. It’s a little disappointing to find that it’s not all that different from the Osa Peninsula. We find a place to stay in Tambor, at the Costa Coral hotel. After such a long day travelling, we are exhausted, and only have the energy to search for bugs around the hotel gardens. We find some millipedes we haven’t seen before, so that’s a little encouraging. Hopefully tomorrow night will bring some more new species.