Very odd. Sitting in the net cafe and late 80´s Madana is on the sterio.
The last 24 hours has been spent with animals of all types.
First I took a little walk after mass. I walk out of town for about 5km and then headed back. I stopped to take a pìcture. It is one of those pictures that is never going t capute what it is. It is like trying to take a picture of Wyoming, but when the picture comes back it is nothing. The photo I took was from the mountain I am on down to the Pasific Ocean.
BIRDS
On the way back from some reason I decided to leave the road and walk on the path paralle to the road (where I should have been the whole time). Heard a rustle. Looked up to see what looked like a tocan, but it was smaller (only 8 inches tall) and green. When I had seen the tocans down of the coast it was from over 40 yards away and they were in flight. Here, he was only a few feet away. He hung out long enough to get a good lock, but not a picture. When I got back into town there was a comotion in the trees above. It was two yellow birds, about the size of robins, chasing a tocan aruond. It was obvious that the yellow birds were scared of the tocan, but from some reason really wanted him to move along. The tocan paid them little mind and when about its business. This time I was able to get out my binoclars and get a great look. Tocans in the wild. Too cool.
SERPIENTES
I went to the world of snakes. Very fun. Leanded how to tell differnace between a venomus snake (in three of the eight snake families in the world) and a non venomus one. The cool picture of the day is of 30 baby boa all in a ball sleeping. Rememeber when looking at a coral RANA meens posionous.
RANAS
I also went to the frog pond. Meet over 30 types of frogs. Learned some great Tico slang (tico is slang from Costa Rican). The world is ojirufo. There is a frog called the ojirufo rana, meaning red eyed frog because it has a red ring around the pupil of the eye like our white. It is also the slag term older ticos use for a drunk.
My guide was great. He mimiced many of the of the frog calls and they called back. I also learned why licking some toads will get you high (as well as make you blind, be sluggish and posibliy die)
BICHOS
(That means bugs, get your mind out the gutter.) While sitting in a little tico diner for dinner a huge bug flew in and landed on the back of the chair of a young American woman. She flicked it away to the floor. I went over and picked it up to carry it outside. After bending to pick it up I made eye contact with another american who mouthed “Thank you” as I took my new friend outside.
SELVA
This morning after a brisk half hour walk up and down the streets of Santa Elena and some bread at the panaria I headed into the jungle. I did a two hour walking tour over a group of bridges. At one point I was 215 feet about the ground and was eye level with the top of a tree. It still amazes the amout of mosture that is needed to have green lushness from the ground to 220 feet in the air. At ground level the brush was so think of the path it would have been imposible to move and the ground brush was 10 feet high.
My new favorite Tico bird is the three wodled bellbird. There wasn´t a previos favorite, but that should not detur it from feeling pride for the title.
Then it was off to the zip lines. 10 in total. Some over 100 yards long. Some over 300 feet above valley floors. The the best way to see wild live, but a very cool look from the top of the world. My group was 15 germans, two spanards, and a honeymooning couple from LA, CA. It was a nice two hours.
I DON´T THINK I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE LIVED HERE
I had a strange thought while looking through my binoculars at a green bird that had tail feathers that were longer than two feet. I thought of my friend Yella from Germany. She was a fellow student at the felmaco school I was at in Granda. Yella, Nic, and myself toured the Alahambra together. It was a beautiful Moorish castle and the last strong hold of the Moores before being driven back to Africa by the Christians. It is an amazing castle with floor to ceiling wood work. Because it is sacrelgious for Muslims to depict people or animals in art (for fear of idle worship) all the carvings were these beautiful gemotric designs. Room and room. Floor the ceiling (many times three stories tall). Yella said, “I don´t think I would have liked to have lived here. I would be afraid I would get use to this beautiful art and take it for granted.
I would if my facination with the birds here is in much the same vein. I love the Western Meadowlark. But the first time I think I really apreicaited its song was when I was driving home from college my freshman year. When I reached the NE boarder I stopped for gas. The first thing I heard was the song of the Meadowlark. It ment I was almost home. A place I missed.
I wonder if I would lose appriciation for the birds here if I saw them everyday.

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