Scorpions and Monkey poop...

Hola,

It's now been 3 weeks since we got here.  In many ways it seems longer, and yet it has also gone by quickly.  Time is such an illusory thing.  We pretty much only care about what time it is because of what that might mean for what tide it is, or how soon until the sun sets.  Since we are so close to the equator, the sun sets at almost the same time every night and comes up about 12 hours later.  It sets around 5:45pm right now.  Our house is a bit dark and certainly the bedroom doesn't get much morning light, so though we wake up early here, it's not at sunrise.  The early mornings are some of the nicest times here, especially at the beach.  If there is a breeze, it is usually offshore which is good for surfing.  The water is glassy and you don't have to squint into the sun to see the waves coming.  We enjoy sitting on the porch in the morning and drinking our coffee.  Then after a light snack we'll head to the beach to surf.  It is sometimes hard to get  my body going in the morning, but it feels so good afterwards.  I feel very alive and refreshed after surfing in the morning.  And ravenous.  So usually it's back to the house for a real breakfast.  This morning it was gallo pinto and eggs with bacon and a tomato and avocado garnish.  Yummy.  Now Michael has gone off to make a quick trip to Nosara (hitchhiking) to go to the grocery store and I am writing.  Later we may go down to the south end of the beach and out onto the point where Michael will try a little fishing.

Surfing is going pretty well for me.  On Monday I went back to the doctor and got the all clear to go back in the water.  So in the afternoon I took Michael's rented longboard out and tried some more waves.  I also signed up for another lesson on Tuesday.  This time I had Oscar for my instructor as Nelson wasn't feeling well.  It was good to get another perspective and learn some more things.  Oscar taught me more about catching green waves (waves that haven't broken yet) and what to look for when you are watching the water for waves.  He also had some good insights into balance and technique for the pop up.  We tried for a lot of waves and by the time we were done, I was exhausted!

Tuesday night we went out for dinner because neither of us felt like cooking.  We went to Giardino Tropicale which is an italian place with a wood fired oven for pizza.  It is also a hotel.  We rode our bikes over with our lights in the dark and managed to avoid the potholes successfully.  Our pizza and caesar salad were good and the service was better than most.  They even had the local beer on tap.  Mostly we've just seen bottles and cans.  For desert we indulged in a banana cake with ice cream.  The banana cake was dark and dense and looked like a chocolate brownie.  It was delicious!

We have been talking about our plans for the rest of our time in Costa Rica and on Wednesday we made some decisions.  Originally we thought we'd go over to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica to Puerto Viejo to meet up with another couple.  As it turns out, it doesn't look like they'll both be there.  Michael didn't think the surf was going to be very consistent there and it is rainier on that side and would take us at least a day to get there, maybe more, depending on how we went.  I am also really enjoying learning to surf and Nosara is the perfect place to learn.  So we have decided to spend some more time here.  We will take a trip into the mountains in a few weeks to Monteverde to see the cloud forest.  This will be a nice change of pace and give me a chance to see another side of Costa Rica.  We'll also probably take a little trip to Samara which is a bigger town down the coast a little.  Since our house rental is ending Feb. 11 we had to find another place to stay and that was a bit of a challenge as it is high season here.  But we managed to find something that I think will be just great and got a discount for the last minute booking.  It will be in a little different part of Playa Guiones, so it will be fun to get to know a new part of the beach on a regular basis.  We'll be closer to some of the places we like and get to know a different set of people.  And if anything, it is even closer to the beach.

The Farmer's Market on Tuesday never happened and we needed some stuff, so yesterday we bought some more vegetables and fruit from the guy with the truck.   It is incredibly inexpensive and so fresh.  Things ripen quickly here, so we buy tomatoes that aren't quite ripe and in a day or so, they are.  Since avocados are easy to find and cheap, we've been enjoying a lot of them.  Yesterday we also rented me my own surfboard.  Michael had returned the longboard he rented and I wanted a board to use that would be just right for me.  It's 9'2", fairly wide and stable, and has some rocker in the nose.  See?  I'm learning the lingo!  I've used it twice now and I think it's a great board to learn on.

So maybe you're wondering about the title of this post.  Michael killed a scorpion yesterday that was lurking in the closet.  That was the third one we've seen.  The first was on our first night here.  I killed that one in the bathroom.  The second was a corpse we found in the bedroom kind of behind the desk.  Neither one of us likes killing critters, but we like scorpions even less.  We had to dispose of a rather large spider one day in the bedroom too.  I got that one with a broom.  Some of the spiders here are really fast so you can't dither about them, you just have to do, or you might find it leaping at you.  Eeeeek!

As for monkey poop, we have determined that the loud thunks on the roof at night have got to be the result of monkeys in the trees doing some business in the middle of the night.  It's really loud!  But fortunately it usually doesn't last too long.  The Howler monkeys continue to make regular visits to the trees above the house and obviously on some nights, they sleep there.  It is fun to see the troop moving through the trees or lounging overhead.  I saw a mama with a little baby on her back yesterday.  Very cute.  There is also a pretty good sized black iguana that likes to take naps in the trees behind the house.  We see him climbing the tree from our porch.  In Monteverde we hope to see more birds and butterflies.

I hope you are all enjoying winter back home.  I can't say I miss the snow or cold right now.

Hasta luego,

Sojourner Sarah