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On our last day in Costa Rica we were on the Pacific Ocean. I hadn’t ever been in the Pacific Ocean, so I insisted the night we arrived that we put on our bathing suits and trek out into the waters. So Cricket, being a trooper, hoisted up his swim trunks and we headed off. We watched the sunset:

And a romantic couple having a fancy dinner to the right of us:

And when it was dark we went in. Here are some fun facts about the Pacific Ocean. It has a killer tow when the waves go in and out and the sand has rocks that pop out all over. They recommend that you do not go in it for fear you will step on a rock, fall down and get sucked away forever. So Cricket and I are in the water, me up to my ribs and Cricket his bellybutton (he’s very tall) and he was holding my hand because he was concerned I would drown. I was leaping from one foot to another taunting the waves, and when one would come I would jump up, immediately get pulled seven feet backward, then hop forward like a deranged lemur yelling at the ocean, “Is that all you got? Your waves are pathetic! I own you! You are nothing! Poseidon can kiss my (posterior component)! etc.” The look on Cricket’s face was priceless. It was a combination of affection for me and sad acceptance that the life partner he has chosen is a complete idiot. So now I can say I have been in the Pacific Ocean.

The next day we decided to go on a booze cruise, primarily because they had snorkeling which I wanted to do. We met down at the cove, took a small boat out to the catamaran and hung out on it for five hours. It was delightful. Even if you don’t drink, you could sit on the front of the catamaran, look at the scenery and enjoy the weather. However, we got very lucky. We saw some humpback whales:

But even cooler were the rays. While we were in Costa Rica it was ray mating season, so the rays were trying to impress the ladies. They did this thing where they went right up to the surface and flapped their floopers, making the water look like it was boiling. I got some video footage of that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CYjEM7kPDg

But they did this other thing that was totally hypnotic to watch. The males, in an attempt to attract a mate, would fling themselves out of the water, look like they were flying and then fall back into the water with a big splash. It looked like anthropomorphic teabags trying to escape. I didn’t get any footage, but I found some that totally shows what it was like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2QTOz8kDZg

I could have watched that all day. (I pretty much did.) Then I went snorkeling which was pretty lame due to the amount of sandy debris that had been stirred up the night before by winds or currents or whatever. It made the visibility really low. However, on the way back to the boat, one of the boatmen who had been swimming with us climbed back on with an angry super-puffed pufferfish. He was perfectly round and all his little spiky bits were all poking out, the boat man said he had a lot of practice holding them, otherwise it would hurt. He put the pufferfish in a five-gallon bucket and when Mr. Puffy calmed down, I pet him. He felt exactly like small plastic barbs covered with a thin layer of slime. I, not surprisingly, adored him and wanted to keep him forever, but a few minutes later the boatman returned him to the sea.

Okay, here are all the remaining photos I have.

Dead moth. He was huge, like an easy six inches across, and other bugs were eating him. The Cycle of Life – it’s gross.

This is one of my pride-n-joy photos. We saw a river otter swimming down the river in the rainforest. I anticipated where he was going by his bubble trail, so my camera was approximately in the right spot when he popped out. He clambered up onto the log, took a couple deep sniffs of the air, and then slithered back in the water – and I got a shot of him during the sniffing! I was thrilled.

A lizard and a heron. Together and yet so far apart.

Tortuguero National Park. Here’s the view outside of the cabins we stayed in. Amazeballs.

Here’s the village of Tortuguero. Originally is was created during the time of the logging, but now it just caters to tourists and helps with the annual green turtle hatching – checking the labels of returning green turtles, making sure the babies go into the ocean, that kind of thing.

The second place we stayed at the base of the Arenal Volcano. One of the most photogenic places on earth. This is where I went on the night frog walk and I saw the hummingbirds.

Bathroom signs we saw all over the place. I guess the plumbing is old, so you can’t put anything in the toilets like paper products. There’s a little garbage can off to the side of the toilet for you to deposit used paper. It took some getting used to, but by the end of the trip I was a pro.

The graveyards in Costa Rica were really interesting. First of all, they’re all above ground, not unlike New Orleans, because the twelvetyteen feet of rain they get. Also, we’re accustomed to graves made of stone, but the people in Costa Rica are pretty poor, so the mausoleums are made of the same stuff their houses are made of, cement blocks and bathroom tile.

The hanging bridges. This is where I saw the hummingbird in a nest and the tarantula in a hole. It was kind of scary because the bridges were really high off the ground, really long and really swingy, but The Moomins and I sucked it up and crossed six of them like the brave soldiers we are. Ain’t gonna let nothin’ stand in our way, oh no.

The stickers on the side of the bus we traveled with. I stared at this from time to time. While the first four stickers seemed accurate, I never noticed a casino on board. Not once.

A moody and dramatic photo of a telephone booth. Very artsy.

The third hotel we stayed in, the one on the Pacific Ocean where I performed my one-man show Old Man and the Sea: The Dumbass Chronicles. This is where the dove had made a nest in a hedge.

And this is a photo of a lamp I liked at this last hotel. I liked the way only the bulb part had a shade on it.

While in Arenal, we went to some natural springs. The water was varying degrees of hot, and while there were quite a few young ‘uns milling around, it was mostly elderly people walking very slowly through the pools of water with no expressions on their faces like totally non-threatening zombies. The foliage around the pools was phenomenal. Mad props to their landscape artist.

No mad props to the sign maker. I like how he managed to screw up both the English and Spanish on this sign.

That’s it. That’s my whole trip to Costa Rica. If you have any questions or anything, feel free to email me. Also, the tour I went on, in case you’re interested, is this one:

http://www.caravan.com/tour/costa-rica

And now, back to TV recaps and pictures of crafty-crafts.

Soft animals with fur and lactating parts! But first, hairy things that do not lactate. And have a lot of limbs. And sometimes eat their kinfolk. For example, this furry-butted spider with angry eyes. Cricket took this picture and is very proud of it.

Then, this beautiful golden orb spider. Love the coloring.

When I was on the hanging bridges (where I saw the hummingbird in the nest), the guide pointed out a wee hole on the side of the mountain and I was face-to-face with a smootchy little tarantula. Not often an animal most might think is cute, but this little feller was. Look at his sweet little toes.

Dotted all over the countryside were cows. Aaron explained that Jerseys and Holsteins didn’t do well in their climate because it was too warm, so the farmers cultivated “hot cows”, predominantly the Brahman cows from India. I think Brahman cows are terrific and Susan got some good shots of them. Look at them and their magical neck-humps.

The oxen are a critical part of Costa Rican society. Before cars, people used oxcarts to bring their wares and possessions where they needed to go. There’s a town in Costa Rica that is known for their exquisite oxcart painting. We didn’t go there, but we did see a few beautiful oxcarts around and about.

Monkeys! There are four types of monkey in Costa Rica and we saw three of them: Capuchin, Howler and Spider. The Squirrel Monkey lives on the Pacific Coast and I didn’t get a chance to go to into the forests on that side, but I saw all the Caribbean monkeys and I feel pretty great about that. The Capuchin Monkey everyone is pretty familiar with – they are used in a ton of movies and as helpers to quadriplegics because they are as smart as a seven-year-old human.

Sometimes you gotta chew on a branch.

And eat some fruit.

Then take a nap.

Needless to say, Capuchin Monkeys = a whole lotta cuteness. Cricket got some video footage of them with the palm fruit. It gets more interesting around the 1:00 mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hkYA8VM21k

But, despite what you might think, Capuchins were not my favorite type of monkey (although they were marvelous and I love them very much). Spider Monkeys are. They also have a prehensile tail and they go up in the tippety-toppety branches, hang there and use all four of their hands to delicately pick tasty leaf-bits. It looks like they’re playing the harp with all four limbs. I could watch them all day.

If you go to Costa Rica, you will hear a really weird noise, something between a bark and a grunt, but very loud. Those are howler monkeys and their calls can be heard over two miles away. We encountered Howler Monkeys several times on this trip. There were mixed opinions on the call of the Howler – some people hated it, I liked it. It’s really basic and it sounds like it comes from the gut. Here’s a example I found on good old YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ihWw_4aOBY

And here are some pictures of Howler Monkeys. Let me preface by saying they are brown and black, but we came across a famous one called Blondie, who is not an albino but she is lacking pigment in her skin and fur. So the orange-y one is not a typical Howler Monkey.

OMG Howler Monkey baby!

When I was on the hanging bridges I was very excited to see coatis. Coatis are in the same family as raccoons and they are adorable, with the sweetest little markings on their faces. They spend their days shnuffling around in the underbrush looking for delicious things like worms and fruit. I was photographing this one…

… and I had started to videotape him when one of his cohorts popped out next to my foot and commenced foraging, which surprised me to say the least. I’m sorry the footage is so Blair-Witchy, it’s very dark in the rainforest and I was startled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJIxBrrDbtA

And then he ran away.

Later that day, we saw a group of females and babies snacking out by the side of the road. The males are solitary and are called “Coatimundi” which I believe means “Lonely One”, so if you ever see a group of them, it’s always ladies and their wee ones.

Sloths! I saw both the two-toed and three-toed variety. First, the two-toed. It was raining. He was climbing from one tree to another and he was very soggy. Here he is in all his soggitude.

And here’s a snippet of footage I took of him. They move pretty quickly considering their name.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tvqJnSGQb8

But the ultimate thing on this trip was the three-toed sloth. One day, everyone came to breakfast saying that there was a three-toed sloth in the tree, but by the time I got there it had magically disappeared. They’re hard to see anyway because they do their best to resemble a rotting bathmat. Later we saw one in a tree far away, but honestly if they hadn’t told me it was a sloth I would have mistaken it for a pile of leaf-debris. The only slothlike defining feature was the three loooooong claws.

I was coming to grips with the lackluster sloth sightings, you know, accepting my plight, when one day we were at a rest stop Aaron came over to me and said, “Would you like to see a sloth with a baby?” I was like YES NOW PLEASE and started craning my neck to look in the trees, but Aaron said, “No, it’s over here.” He took me to a bush, pulled aside some branches and there it was, a sloth with a baby maybe two feet from my face. I calmly asked Aaron if I could touch it (translation: can I steal it and hold it close to me for eternity) but Aaron said no because it is a bacteria-and-algae-encrusted creature and it will get us sick. Here are pictures. You might want to hold on to a chair or something to brace yourself.

Wait, it gets better: video footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5tUYEgX5mk

My favorite part is when all the women on the tour come over and immediately start ovulating in unison at about the :42 mark.

Coming up in the next entry: All the pictures that are left. And then we return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Reptiles and amphibians! Hey, you know what there is a lot of in Costa Rica? Reptiles and amphibians. Even better, reptiles and amphibians that can kill you. For example, we went to a butterfly park. What that means is there is a chunk of rainforest, not particularly big, like 100 feet by 50 feet, and there is a netted tent over it. Butterflies live in there and flit from plant to plant and eat fruit and then die. In the fancy butterfly parks they carefully collect all the dead butterfly bodies off the ground every morning and frame them, but here the public was allowed in so it wasn’t that carefully regimented. What was neat was seeing the caterpillars eating (and pooping, caterpillars poop so much, I had no idea) and butterflies emerging from chrysalises all crumpled and damp. Here are some giant hairy caterpillars with cool patterns. Yes, that is a milkshake glass. Big caterpillars.

This is my mom pointing to one caterpillar’s hind quarters. And whole bunch of caterpillar poop.

This was a lone monster caterpillar. We christened him The Shark. Look at him, then sing the Jaws, “dun dun, dun dun” song to yourself. It totally works.

Emerging butterflies!

This is a Blue Morpho. I love the brown spotted pattern on the outside of their wings, but everyone is totally into their bright blue iridescent inside wing parts. However, it is damn near impossible to photograph the inside because they sit with their wings closed.

All these little fellers were wafting past our heads the entire time we were walking around. It’s magical, like a ticker tape parade but alive.

This guy was my favorite. He’s got big “eyes” on his wings so predators will think he’s a big scary animal, but he is not. He’s a giant fuzzy moth that I want to cuddle.

ANYWAY, the reason I brought up this during my reptiles and amphibian portion of review is because at the bottom of one of the planters in this butterfly park was… a poison dart frog! Just hanging out being poisonous!

One of the reptiles we kept bumping into was the fabulously named “Emerald Basilisk, or Jesus Christ Lizard.” He is named this because he runs across the surface of the water. Their coloring differs depending on their habitat, but in the rainforest they look green and fake. If they didn’t blink or dart away, I would have thought they were plastic. Seriously. Here’s one (a male, notice the big crests on the back) chillin’ on a branch. This was taken without flash.

But this male was taken with flash and he looks super-plasticky-fake.

Mrs. Jesus Lizard was right next to us on the left. No crest.

This is a basilisk that lives in a brown dirt-covered area so he matches that environment. I would call him The Olive Basilisk.

There were tons of teeny-tiny lizards on the walls all over the place. I took a few pictures of them because (shocker!) I thought they were cute and I wanted to take them home with me.

Susan took pictures of these three guys, I don’t know what they are. I think one might be a skink, or maybe not. I am not a herpetologist. Fine-lookin’ lizards, though.

While we were on the river one morning really early we rolled on past this tree and the guide pointed out a boa constrictor being one with the branch. That boa could blend, I tell you. It took me a very long time to see him and he was right in front of me.

Later in the day we floated on by and he had curled up into a little boa-ball.

The time we saw the most cold-blooded creatures is when we went on a night-time frog walk. A guide led us through a chunk of rainforest on foot where there was a pond. They also had some glass cases that had some specimens in them, you know, someone found a death-beast in their house and these people came out and collected it and now they show it to schoolchildren to educate them, etc. My favorite was these two chameleon-looking lizards trying to sleep even though we were shining flashlights in their faces. We left them alone for the rest of the night, so I don’t feel so bad about the five minutes of inconvenience they had to endure.

And we saw a ton of frogs. We saw the Brilliant Forest Frog which doesn’t look like much, but he has a lovely defense mechanism. When he is startled he pees into the face of his predator and jumps away, and the insides of his legs are a vibrant red which disorients the attacker even more. I don’t think I would need the red inner thighs. I think the pee in the face would be enough.

We saw The Masked Frog…

And the Common Tink Frog, who was super-wee…

As well as the equally wee Hourglass Tree Frog.

And in a glass case there was an Eyelash Pit Viper. He was the greatest. He was a slim yellow guy with eyelash-looking scales over his eyes. And he has the best name in the Aztec language: “The Evil That Takes Your Soul With Kissing.” They come in a wide variety of colors depending on what they eat. The bright yellow ones eat hummingbirds, so they are mimicking a pretty flower. I love ‘em.

In my wildlife book they had a whole page devoted to my beloved yellow eyelash pit viper.

I was quietly enjoying my moment with my new snake friend when my shoulder brushed something and eeeeeeehhhhhhhhh giant hairy spider. I don’t normally have a problem with giant hairy spiders but this one surprised me and I thought he was going to climb up my neck into my hair and then I had to walk off to the side and vigorously scratch my scalp with my fingernails.

In the next tank over was the Hog-Nosed Viper, so named because of its upturned snoot. Love the pattern.

We also saw these two frogs. Don’t know what kind they are. I call them Generic Frogs.

One of the most exciting moments of the frog walk was when the guide moved a leaf (a lot of my stories have the phrase, “the guide moved a leaf, and there was a <awesome thing> behind it”) and there was a Red-Eyed Tree Frog, the symbol of Costa Rica.

And, if you look carefully at this photo, you will see a Smooth-Skinned Toad hanging out in the leaf litter.

Coming up, more reptiles. Bigger ones. Scarier ones. With big teefers.

Not all the insanely cute things I saw were mammals. Some of the birds I saw made me clutch at my heart from the preciousness as well. For example, Señor TeenyGrumples right here. He’s a Tree Swallow.

Or this Broadbilled Motmot. Also poofy and grouchy.

At the end of the trip, Cricket and I were checking out of the hotel when someone pointed out a dove’s nest right in the hedge next to the pool. I felt really bad for that dove, she picked a profoundly crappy place to build a nest. But I got to stand up close to her and see her egg. Here is Mrs. White-Winged Dove.

Here is Cricket standing next to the hedge with Mrs. Dove sitting in it.

And look at the egg! She’s got her feet wrapped around it! Awww.

There was this little guy who I think is a Blue-Gray Tanager. He looks fake, like a Christmas tree clip-on ornament, but I assure you he was not.

But by far the smootchiest bird I encountered while in Costa Rica was the hummingbird. Have you ever seen a hummingbird up close? They are so small and vibrant. There was this Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird hanging out in the trees one day.

He was great. He would go and collect nectar from a variety of flowers, then zip back to this branch and flickety-lick his beak with his skinny tongue. It was redonk. Susan got two amazing shots of hummingbirds flying.

But the ultimate was when I was walking on the hanging bridges. Right in front of me was a wee hummingbird in a wee nest. The nest was made from moss and spiderwebs (I am not making this up). I could only get one picture before the little guy flew off and it’s royally backlit, but it gives you an idea. Holy Moses, people.

Here’s a photo I found on the internet that more adequately shows you what it looked like, and a picture of a hummingbird nest to give you a sense of scale. The nest was mad tiny, yo.

Other birds! This is a Green Ibis. There he is. Apparently he only looks green in bright sunlight, so when there’s clouds (which there is a lot – rainforest!) he looks gray.

We saw what I politely referred to as “a demonic-looking duck” building a nest in some greenery. It’s called a Gray-Necked Wood Rail, by the way. The Evil Gray-Necked Wood Rail of Satan.

When we were in a boat we passed by three kingfishers – The Belted Kingfisher, The Amazon Kingfisher and The Ringed Kingfisher. All were staring with that laser-like gaze they have. I feel like if they looked at you for ten seconds or so, you would blister in the spot they were looking at, so very intense is their gaze.

An Osprey! Big bird of prey. Eats fish. Has sharp talons.

We were one the bus one day and the guide Aaron stopped it and informed us that a rare bird was wandering around in a cow pasture off to the right. I found out the name later: It’s a male Purple Gallinule.

This was super-cool – when we were on a river boat ride down a bit of river filled with birds and crocodiles, Aaron spotted a pair of Scarlet Macaws flying off in the distance and Susan managed to get a shot of the pair in a tree. It’s grainy, but it’s a picture. There are only 300 breeding pairs out there.

Did you know parrots are monogamous for life? At rest stop we spotted this Blue Macaw on a branch. She belonged to the owner of the rest stop and her husband had recently passed away (the Blue Macaw’s husband, not the owner) and according to studies, Mrs. Macaw would pass away soon as well…of depression and loneliness. Isn’t that sad? I wanted to give her a hug, but she was big and beaky and high up and probably didn’t need my love, so I refrained. And because of that I still have all my fingers, so good choice on my part.

Also, on the Bird ‘n’ Crocodile River Ride…The Northern Jacana! I love this bird. Its feet are so incredibly large in proportion to its body. Its feet are perpetually making jazz hands.

We also saw the Yellow-Headed Caracara (nice bird) and the Collared Caracara (AWESOME bird). They eat carrion and hang around where the crocodiles be at in the hopes of getting leftover snakkies.

Susan got a shot of Black-Necked Stilts. I didn’t see them, but I love the way they are arranged in this photo, so I’m putting it in here.

Finally, bird-wise, while we were on the Pacific Ocean beach there were Brown Pelicans swooping around eating and swimming and standing with their beaks shoved into their chests. They’re smaller than the pelicans we are accustomed to, and prettier too. Generally all-around better pelicans.

Okay. End of birds. On to reptiles, amphibians and mammals. And a couple buggies thrown in for good measure.

Anhingas! Anhingas are birds that dive for fish like cormorants. Anhingas are flawed in their design because, unlike ducks, they do not have that waterproof oil on their feathers so when they are wet they cannot fly. But they dive to eat fish and live in the rainforest, so I don’t know when they dry. We saw them sunning themselves all over the place but I never saw one fly, so maybe they don’t need to fly. Here’s a male anhinga.

And here’s a female anhinga.

This is a female diving for fish and swimming. They are sometimes referred to as the snake bird, and when it’s in the water you can see how the anhinga got that name.

I mentioned how Cricket made me tromp through the forest so we could see a lagoon, and at one point I thought I was hallucinating because all of a sudden there was a wee plump bird next to my foot.

Here’s the weird part – he kept me company for a long chunk of the walk. He didn’t want anything from me, like food, and he wasn’t scared of me. As I would walk he would hop next to my foot, several times getting so close that I was concerned I would step on him. I liked my little walking companion.

The reason we were on the top of the mountain was to look at a resting volcano. I say resting and not dormant because it was full of steaming hot sulfuric water, so the volcano is still cranky and could totally pop its top at any time (I think the last time was in 1963).

Here’s the sun-faded information board off to the side, as well as the altitude sign.

And here’s the lagoon that we trekked to. It is a dormant volcano and hasn’t exploded in forever (you can tell because all the foliage has grown around the opening), and it is full of rainwater. It really is that insane shade of blue.

• | • | • INTERMISSION  • | • | •

Here’s a bird on a plant. Don’t know what kind of bird or what kind of plant. Cool photo, tho.

• | • | • INTERMISSION OVER • | • | •

Toucans! Wow, toucans are awesome. I think they’re great. Our guide told us the most common question he gets about toucans is, “How do they hold up that heavy beak?” but the beak is made out of a similar material to our fingernails, so the beak is not that heavy. Also, according to our guide, the beaks are not that strong either, like if the bird bites down on your finger it doesn’t really hurt because they don’t have the jaw strength. Here are the first toucans we saw. They are called Keel-Billed Toucans, but I heard them referred to as Rainbow Toucans a couple of times.

When we were in Tortuguero* we stayed in little bungalows surrounded by massive quantities of trees, so beasties would be right above us all the time. There was a Chestnut-Mandibled Toucan hanging out in a tree maybe ten feet away from me one day. He was delightful.

And one day Susan caught this fellow on the far end of a branch. I adore the shot where he’s looking straight-on at us.

She also got a shot of the scariest-looking toucan ever, the Collared Aracari. I think the combination of the goat pupil with the serrated edge on the beak really amps up the creepiness factor.

Herons! Herons and egrets are all over the place when you’re in the rainforest or wetlands. They stare into the water looking for shrimps or fishies, they have really evocative expressions because of that. Here’s a few examples.

“Why? Why am I here? When will I truly understand my purpose in life?” (Snowy Egret)

“I hate everyone.” (Little Blue Heron)

“I am very photogenic. And now I am leaving.” (Great Egret)

“You kids get off my lawn!” (Yellow Crowned Night Heron)

And, of course, “Hey lookit, a shrimp!” (Little Blue Heron again)

When we were in a crocodile reserve we saw a Bare-Throated Tiger Heron stalking up and down on the bank.

And we saw this guy. He is a heron of some kind. I couldn’t find him in the book. My friend B. figured what he is! He’s a green heron. Thank you, B.

Next entry I will continue with birds, and I may delve into some mammals. And talk about coffee. Good stuff.

* Tortuguero National Park is where a large quantity of the world’s population of green turtles come to lay eggs. Here’s an informative page on the park: http://www.wayfaring.info/2009/07/08/tortuguero-national-park/