Homecoming and the serpent as a symbol

Welcome home!

After two busy weeks of working back in the States, I could not have been more excited to return to our tropical paradise home.   Although it was great to see friends in Portland (and to have some Thai and food cart food), I could not have been more warmly welcomed home by my family.  Being away was hard for us all, especially for Sullivan.  Missing his dad and also having had a tick on a very sensitive body part made it a tough go for the little man.  Fortunately, his Gram has been here to help hold down the fort.  He was pretty excited to see me and to hold his beloved "big doggy" in his arms once again.

Later in the evening, I just happened to spot a snake above the frame of the window outside our living room.  Not exactly the welcoming present I was hoping for.  This was the first snake we had seen anywhere near the house.  Its head was relatively small, its body about a meter long and it didn't seem to look like any of the dangerous venomous local vipers we'd heard about.  Lucky us.  After some discussion, it was decided that I'd try to gently move it down with a large stick.  This gentle approach only caused our friend to retreat back into a crevice.  Our friend bravely stuck his head and part of his neck out again and was greeted with a swat from our broom.  He came tumbling out and his true length was revealed.  He slithered off into a flower bed could not be persuaded to leave the yard despite my dousing with the hose.

This exciting sighting served as a reminder of the wildness and unfamiliarity of this country.  Even though this guy is most likely harmless, the snake at this moment exemplified a fear of the unknown, as there are a few quite dangerous snakes here.  I've had the thought of going all-out ninja and quietly taking care of this snake with our machete but don't think it's right, as he's done us no harm and doesn't seem to really be a threat. Didn't have these same worries in our comfortable neighborhood in Oregon.  Many of our friends and family in the States surely would have been even more excited (terrified even?).  I also smiled at the adventure we were having trying to chase him away from the house, knowing this'll make a good story in the future.  All were grateful that his presence was noticed after my return.  After not seeing him through the day yesterday, our friend reappeared last night outside the dining room window.   Is there a pattern here?

On a more comfortable note, everyone is enjoying having Erica's mom here to visit for a couple of weeks.  It's been a nice mixture of home life and exploring the local environs.  We will be sad to see her go but I don't think she's likely to miss our nocturnal friends.

I did manage to bring back supplies from the US including brown rice, Easter candy and more math books, but transporting my mountain bike here outranked everything else.  My inaugural ride this morning was everything I thought it would be, just a bit tougher.  The dirt road across the main highway from our neighborhood that leads up to Lago Cote will likely be my gym equivalent for the foreseeable future.  It's straight up, rocky, scenic and snake-free, so far.  It's steep and uneven enough that I sat down in my granny gear most of the way up to Lago Cote.  My reward for taking a morning ride was a relatively cool 70ish degrees.  Pura vida.

"Road" to Lago Cote