

Monday – 24 July – Guanacaste Day
Today has been a bit of a lazy day. Niall has been home from school and my students are in Liberia helping to celebrate a national holiday --Guanacaste Day. The day marks the annexation of the province of Guanacaste from Nicaragua in the mid 19th century, and in Liberia (the capitol of the province) they have a huge rodeo to celebrate—sort of a Tico version of a state fair in the US. Here in Monteverde, many people have the day off, and most seem to have gone to the beach for the day. We’ve been just hanging around the house, and earlier we went for a hike up a small stream just up the road from us. As we walked up the road to get to the trail, we saw a two toed sloth, along with her baby. Once again, the best wildlife seems to be right off the roads or people’s yards, not always out in pristine rain forest in parks or preserves. In this case she was close enough to even get a pretty good picture, though even a “good” picture of a sloth still tends to look like a big ball of mossy fur up in a tree.
We then hiked about a kilometer up a seldom used trail that belongs to the family we are renting from. Mostly the trail is used to get to their water supply—some springs farther up the stream, so almost no one ever goes up there. The stream was very picturesque, with lots of little rapids and small waterfalls as it tumbled down a very narrow steep valley filled with ferns, palms, vines, and many huge ancient trees well over 100’ tall, all covered with moss and thousands of different epiphytes, including a myriad of orchids and bromeliads. Finally the trail petered of into almost nothing, and we bushwhacked another 100 meters or so climbing over the mossy rocks along the small waterfalls. Even Niall was gung ho for more, at least until he was bitten by a small spider. So much for a pleasant walk in the woods; fortunately it wasn’t anything major, but hiking with an 8 year old still remains an adventure all its own ;-)
After our hike we discovered why Garfield (Niall’s lizard) is a fat as he is. Niall has been dropping various bugs (flies, moths, beetles, and even a small walking stick) into his little cage for several days, but he’s turned his nose up at pretty much everything. Until this morning; that’s when Niall dropped in a fairly large and very healthy cockroach. Zooom, crunch! If he eats only a couple of those a week, it’s no wonder he’s as big as he is! Norma has decided having a big green lizard around the house is no problem at all now.
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