Los Días Típicos

While Nik is back in Portland working, the kids and I are continuing on with daily life.  We are feeling fully enveloped in the rainy/ green season which seemed to start the moment Nik and his parents left for the airport last week.  Their departure was followed by a deluge and impressive thunderstorm.  The weather matched our mood, having to say goodbye.  While it has been off and on rainy, the temperature is still quite nice.  We still eat all of our meals outside, and the only reason to close our windows at night is to keep the bird and monkey sounds from waking us up too early.

One surprising drawback to living in a tropical climate in a house with no heat or air conditioning is that mold has taken a liking to some of our belongings.  Suitcases, backpacks, toiletry bag, hats, shoes, banjo case, camera strap.  Who knew mold liked to grow on these items?!  In my experience it has only been forgotten veggies in the fridge.  We need to find a way to turn our household mold into a 6th grade science project.  Anyway, I am battling back, armed with bleach.  So far we are winning.

We made a trip to Tilaran last week to visit the eye doctor to get contact lenses for Madeleine.  I was prepared to use my meager Spanish, but the eye doctor, who studied at UC Berkeley many years ago, spoke pretty good English.  When I did make a comment in Spanish, I received in return a fast and long response (in Spanish) that mostly went over my head.  So we mainly stuck to English, and that got the job done.  The cost for the rather low tech exam and fitting and 8 pairs of 4-week lenses was 80,000 colones, or $160.  We are taking advantage of low health care costs here for sure.  I do wonder how many Ticos can afford contact lenses though.

We considered a weekend trip, but found ourselves housebound for part of Saturday with an accidentally locked bedroom door.  We tried all we could think of and were finally rescued by Ed, our very helpful and skilled property manager.  Our weekend outing (aka escape from rainy day at home with 3 children) was to Termales Los Laureles near La Fortuna on Sunday.  It was only moderately crowded and only rained part of the time.  The pools were evacuated briefly for a thunderstorm, and we were glad to have a rancho/ cabana to keep us dry while we waited out the storm.  We only had a brief view of Volcan Arenal’s lower half; the rest of the time it remained hidden by clouds.

Lunch in our little rancho at Termales Los Laureles, with Madeleine's friend Aubrie.
Volcan Arenal is hiding in the background.

Without Nik here to share the taxi service responsibilities, I am putting in a lot of kilometers on the road between Las Flores, our little gringo enclave, and Nuevo Arenal where the kids go to school, 5 km away.  Sullivan goes to school in the morning, and Madeleine and Henry flip flop between morning and afternoon each week, on different schedules.  I average 4 round trips per day.  There are 7 kids who live near us, so we often have extra passengers to and from school.  While I have a captive audience, I can practice some Spanish with them.  At least being the carpool mom makes me feel like I am helping out our local friends in a small way.

Our neighbor friend, Nataline, in 4th grade.

Her sister, Mariel, in 5th grade.

Today while Madeleine was at school, the boys and I went for a little walk to the ponds of Las Flores.  We saw little fish and howler monkeys (congos) in the trees.  Meanwhile Nik was taking a walk in Portland, from the South Park Blocks to REI and Powells in the Pearl.  It felt like we were sharing walks, as we texted and sent photos of what we were seeing back and forth.  Yay technology!

Howler monkeys crossing the road, a rare sight.  Usually we only see them in trees.

Sully with his car monkey.