Birds, monkeys and snakes!

Good morning!

Pretty much the entire family has settled into an early morning schedule.  The sun rises just before six and the birds serve as our alarm clocks.  Despite the complete lack of any time restraints on our days, everyone is typically up before seven which definitely is not the norm in the history of our family.  Today there was a large and very loud group of birds that didn’t even fly around for us to be able to see them.  The volume is similar to what is heard in our neighborhood daily around 6 am.

More schoolwork for the kids until we get them into the school in town next week.  I took a stroll down the hill to a nature trail in the neighborhood.  The only real wildlife I encountered were two retired Canadian couples overwintering two houses away from us.  They’d fled -30 degree weather in Calgary.  Madeleine, Henry and I headed back into town to resupply, including a stop in the produce store.  We stocked up including a couple of fruits completely novel to us.  Here is a caimito (aka star apple), which the clerk reported to us was “muy rico”.  Sure enough, it was sweet, creamy and delicious.  Of course, it’s purported to have healing properties also.

Caimito, a new treat

Sullivan and I ventured back down to the nature trail, met yet some more Gringo neighbors and had much better luck in the critter-finding department.  He was equally enthralled with the small kitten, Zappy, as he was with the two impressively loud howler monkeys (Congos).  They made a lot of noise and were staring at us intently but managed to resist trying to pelt us with excrement.  We could’ve watched them a lot longer but the red ants nipping at our feet moved us along. 

Near the end of the trail we saw a colorful red, yellow and black two foot snake slither away from us.  I think I’ve got myself convinced that it was the non-venomous Tropical Kingsnake and less likely the venomous Costa Rican Coral Snake.  Though Sullivan was nonplussed, we watched our steps that much more carefully.  Home for an earlier dinner and bedtimes, as the plan is to head out early in the morning for some trekking on the flanks of Volcan Arenal, with some more flora and fauna along the way.  Enough of this domestic transitioning, give us some more adventure!

Little man ready for adventure