Exotic Animals in Costa Rica

The elusive quetzal! I have been looking for this guy for 5 months and finally spotted him at The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve in Costa Rica. The quetzal is a very colourful, long-tailed bird that hides out in the Americas and is often held as the most beautiful bird in the Western Hemisphere! The quetzal is also the national bird of Guatemala and so prized that they coined their units of money after this glorious bird.



Tree hugging in Manuel Antonio National Park! This is a sloth, my new favourite animal.
I was following a well-marked path in Manuel Antonio on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica when I saw a group of tourists starring up into a huge tree. When I got closer I realized they had spotted a sloth, a brown fuzzy blur, high above our heads. The sloth seemed to be asleep and the crowd soon dispersed, more interested in the surrounding beaches. My Irish friend Sharon and I stayed behind and were in awe because we had yet to encounter a sloth on our hiking adventures. We were in for a treat when this two-toed, male sloth made his way down the tree and to the ground in front of us. When I took this picture I was 3 feet from this enchanting creature!

You need a bit more information to understand the rarity of this opportunity. Firstly, sloths only come to the ground about once a week. They live most of their lives hanging upside down in trees, where they eat, sleep, mate and give birth. Secondly, sloths are nocturnal animals and sleep approximately 18 hours a day! They are hunted by jaguars, eagles and people and so they are very cautious about making their decent to the jungle floor once a week to defecate beneath their cecropia tree. They eat the leaves of the cecropia tree and it is believed that they defecate at the base in order to fertilize the trees that sustain them. The great circle of life!
Sloths are the slowest mammals on Earth and get their name from their lack of speed, not laziness, as it is commonly believed. We were entranced by the sloth´s tai-chi like movements as he meditatively made his way down to the ground. A truly beautiful and mesmerizing performance to witness.




The dazzling, Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, an engineering marvel! Outside a cafe, in Monteverde, I relaxed in the Hummingbird Gallery where hundreds of hummingbirds flocked to drink the sweet water hung in feeders for them. Hummingbirds have always fascinated me. Their wings beat about 80 times per second and fly 850-1600 km during migration from Canada to Mexico or Central America, non-stop! Phenomenal!

This is Not a Postcard

How many times a day do we feel complete and utter happiness? How many times a year or a lifetime?

Today I was sitting, reading, having a coffee in a cafe in Tortuguero, Costa Rica when happiness washed over me and hovered. The coffee was good and the ambience was pleasant, but real (palm trees, puffy pillows scattered around the cafe, yet an Imperial beercan floated by on the river). The tiniest flower I have ever seen rested on my table, until a breeze lifted it away.
I was reading Fugitive Pieces, a poetic novel by Anne Michaels. Healthy and alert with caffine running through my veins. There was love and peace in my heart, nothing could spoil that moment and I had full control as I basked in its rarity.
Tortuguero does not have a pretty beach and I would not want it any other way. No one was on the black sand with me and no one was swimmming or sunbathing on this gloomy day. The waves were fierce and the water murky with warnings of sharks and barricudas.
This is not a postcard. The water is not turquiose or azul or any other shade of ¨brochure blue¨. It is perfect and I am happy. Why do I cringe and back away from postcard promises? Why do they stir anxiety in me? I do not believe they are real. Because I think they are made to be what we have come to want and call beautiful?
The crashing waves are soothing with no particular rythum. Everything is impermanent. This feeling will pass, I will drink all of my coffee and this beach will disappear into the sea. But for now, en ese momento, life is good and so I will savour it, breath in.
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I have jeans and privacy! These are two things I have been craving. I bought jeans a couple of days ago for $4. The front button was missing but I had one put on for 0.20 cents... Magic happens in the marketplace! No city, town or world should ever be without a market.
And privacy---oh the luxury! How do people find time for themselves here? They don´t and have never had the chance. I travel sola, yet I am never alone and it is often a battle to find space to think or write or be silent. Here, in Tortuguero, I have my own room and washroom for $15 and it is glorious! This is the most I have spent on a room, but it was worth it these last two days.
I catch myself thinking back to ¨A Room of One´s Own¨, by Virgina Woolf. This article has stayed with me through the years and her thesis is so simple: in order to create and find inner joy we must have a room where we can think and enough money to provide for ourselves.
On Canada Day I asked my friends and family what Canada meant to them. There was a common thread in the email replies that I recieved. Our home and native land is blessed with space, lots of space. And those lucky enough, with the proper means, are afforded the luxury to enjoy those beautiful spaces. I had never considered this blessing before, but am rapidly realizing the splendor of space during the course of my travels. Elbowroom and headroom cost money. The majority of people in Central America and in the world cannot afford spaciousness. We can survive without our own space but we cannot thrive.

Happy Birthday to me!

Hey guys, thanks for all the birthday wishes. It was nice to wake up to read tons of emails from everyone and it helped me feel connected to everyone back home. For my birthday I hiked a gorgeous waterfall on the island of Ometepe, Nicragua. I also woke up to a cute card made by my Irish friend Sharon. She collected things from around our hostal and created a very crafty little message. I then had a delicious breakfast of gallo pinto, my favourite dish in Nicaragua. After brunch we hitched a ride from some friendly locals in the back of a pickup truck all the way to the San Ramon Waterfall. It was a peaceful, misty walk complete with more butterflies than I could have ever imagined to exist in one rainforest. There were clouds of them!

Sharon and I travelled off the island later that day and went to celebrate my big day in a tiny beach town called San Juan del Sur. I had a fantastic, fresh fish dinner and a couple of Tonas (the local brew). A perfect birthday!

I am now in beautiful Monteverde, Costa Rica where there are more shades of green than I can comprehend! Stories and pictures to follow in a day or so. Hasta luego!