A fine-feathered friend...

A day after we returned to Costa Rica after a 6-week visit with family and friends in Arizona, we were joined by 2 AZ friends giving us an excuse to visit all of our favorite beaches and bars. Along the way we ran into this very friendly parrot hanging out by the entrance to Cahuita National Park. There was no owner in sight but not to worry -- this guy sounds like he can find his way around in any language.

More foods from Mother Nature…

There seem to be countless varieties of palm trees in the jungle. We have several coconut palms in our yard and have also added an unusual looking “traveler palm” – photos to come as it grows. One palm that has caught our interest over the past 6 months is a 65 foot tall, very straight, very skinny tree that is just on the other side of our property line. Right under the palm fronds there appeared to be a circle of “frisbee” looking discs with clusters of some type of berry or fruit under them – definitely not coconuts. Well, yesterday its secret was revealed! We noticed the next-door neighbor precariously perched in a tree next to the palm with a home made harvesting stick that had to be a good 40 feet long. He hung onto the branches of his perch while skillfully manipulating the “stick” to knock the fruits off the palm. A short while later he showed up at our gate with a bag full of the “goodies.” They are called “peach palms.” They are easy to prepare – simply boil and open, then scoop out the flesh. The taste reminds me of a sweet potato. The locals recommend you eat them with mayonnaise – surprisingly they recommend eating many things – including tacos – with mayonnaise.

Missed photo ops…

You just never know when a great photo opportunity will come your way…this past week presented two of them – and, unfortunately, I did not have the camera with me. The first “event” was at my Spanish instructor’s cabina on Monday. Perched quietly in the wood beams above our heads was a boa. The snake had been there for a couple of days already and seemed quite content to just relax a few feet from us. I brought the camera back on Wednesday but the boa had already moved on to another “home.”

On Friday evening we decided to stop at our favorite Chinese restaurant in Cahuita for a quick dinner before heading home to the hills. Almost all restaurants are “open air” meaning no walls just a roof. While we were seated there we happened to look up and notice a sloth making its way across one of the ceiling beams – he went the full width of the ceiling – hanging upside down of course, until reaching a tree branch and continuing his journey via trees.

To eat or not to eat...

We think these are edible "Oyster Mushrooms" growing at the base of a tree trunk in our yard....however, the "Mushroom Book" is in Arizona! We thought we would post a picture and see if anyone can identify these BEFORE we eat any. Any ideas?

Dog days of summer…

It seems like we went through 2 or 3 weeks of overcast afternoons, more rain than usual in the morning or evening and waves at all of our favorite beaches. This was great weather for the Puerto Viejo Pro Surf Tournament on August 9th, of course but not so great for casual swimming. Now we are in a period of perfect water – at least for those who like to swim and snorkel. We’ve spent 4 of the last 5 days at the beach and are planning another outing tomorrow. One day we brought Spot, Tiger & Blondie (3 of the puppies) to the Salsa Brava beach with us. They had a great time playing with each other as well as other people at the beach, although it did take a good deal of “encouragement” to get Spot and Tiger into the water. We stopped at Black Beach on the way out of town for a little more play time before heading home. As luck would have it we struck up a conversation with a young man named junior who was very impressed with Blondie. To make a long story short, Blondie now lives with Junior and we are down to 6 dogs. Since that worked so well we took two of the other dogs to a different beach today. They also had fun but didn’t attract any new parents…tomorrow’s another day and there are still more beaches to hit! (photo shows Brownie at Punta Uva today).

Custard Apples

Here’s another very strange looking fruit that is surprisingly tasty! The Custard-apple is a species of Annona. The tree that bears these fruits is a semi-evergreen tree sometimes reaching 33 feet.tall and a native of the tropical New World that prefers low elevations, and a warm, humid climate. I got this one from a neighbor so I am not yet sure what the tree looks like. The flesh of the fruit is smooth, sweet and tasty. It does have sizable seeds throughout the flesh but that is a minor inconvenience. This is one fruit I would actually plant!

Jungle Perils

Life in the jungle is not always easy. We arrived home from work one evening and were greeted by a neighbor who had found an infant howler monkey on the jungle floor. He brought it to us hoping we would be able to nurse it back to health or find a vet who could help. It was too late to bring him to the vet (about an hour away) so we gave him warm milk and a little plantain which seemed to give him some new energy. A few other neighbors stopped by – the consensus was that this little fellow was in pretty bad shape. There were several large growths where torselos had bitten him and laid their eggs inside of him. He was not able to sit or crawl on his own and appeared to have internal injuries. We made him a bed, wrapped him to keep him warm and hoped for the best. Sadly he did not make it through the night.