Friends and Fun

     I’ve been making friends pretty easily, but that’s not very hard to do when you’re out and about traveling and don’t have any friends with you.  I’ve been spending a lot of time with Gabby, an ecologist who is going to study the toxicity of a chemical they use on banana plantations (it’s illegal everywhere else – it’s terrible for anything and everything) and its effects on amphibians (this is like her childhood dream, I think it’s so cool that she’s living it, and doing something to make a difference). We’ve enjoyed Tasty Tuesday (party night at Tasty Waves Cantina next door) and Trivia night, Reggae dance party at Lazy Mon (a bar downtown) and trips to the beach, an animal rescue center, and lunches here and there. We also made a delicious feast last night – my first night eating more than rice and beans!! But that of course is still includes. We’re in the carribean for heavens sake. 

 Corn on the cob, spaghetti, and poco gallito con tomates 👌🏼 of course, everything is covered with sriracha and habañero sauce 😋💦

     I made a friend, Kembo, on my second night here. He’s a local, born and raised in Puerto Viejo. He taught me how to surf, let me use his board, and introduced me to a lot of locals around here. After a few days of surfing tho, he wanted to be a little more than friends, so I had to cut that off there. Apparently it was all or nothing, so I’m going to have to find some new surfing buddies, but there are plenty around! The beach I am right next to is great for beginner surfers, so I’ll be sure to get some practice. I absolutely LOVE surfing. It’s way better than snowboarding. The falls hurt a lot less 👍🏼  I did get this bad boy a few days ago when the wave crashed the board into me and took me out! 
       

     Like I said, Gabby and I took a tour at the Jaguar Rescue Center which is only a few, maybe 5 km down the road. That was such a treat to see all the animals, and much more enjoyable than a zoo because I wasn’t sympathizing for the animals the whole time. The end goal to all the animals at the rescue center is to be released safely back into the wild. Below are some of the animals of the center, not including the deer, anteater, puma, and a few other things. 

   
  

Little young howler monkeys not yet old enough to make day trips to the forest. Once they’re old and strong enough they’ll start doing half day trips then full day trips until they’re accepted by another group of monkeys. They’re all here for different reason and, all orphans. Some of their moms were electrocuted on the power lines, some were found as pets and being sold on the street, some were just found alone, and there are two older permanent residents: a blind monkey and one with a mostly amputated leg. 

2 little Caiman found in a local’s swimming pool. 

  

So pretty! They come in all sorts of colors, and a mom is able to give birth to any color babies  

 

False Coral Snake ^ Ignore the caption on this unless you’re a Harry Potter nerd, even then, it’s supposed to be parsel mouth. 

     Lil Tucan

  

2-toed sloth doing what sloths do best. I learned that sloths move so slowly (3-5 meters per minute) because they are conserving energy for digestion. They have 4 stomachs, and it take one month to digest their meals!

  
   

  
  

A little margay sleeping, this is the smallest cat they have here. They also have a puma!  

  This little 1 and 1/2 month old monkey below and the 4 month old raccoons above have got to be the cutest of the batch. 

   

 

     After visiting the center, we biked a few more kilometers for a quick look at Punta Uva, SUCH a beautiful beach, and a lot calmer than the one in front of me. It’s the place I’ll go when I snorkel, too!      

    

     On our way back, we decided to stop for pizza. Mind you, neither of us had really eaten breakfast or much at all that morning, and had done a lot of walking/biking in the humid heat. More importantly, we’d both been craving pizza for sooooo long. Well, like 2 days. So we finally got our pizza. Little did we know, they were lying to us. it was cheater pizza. Not pizza at all. It was another dish that they just called pizza and we were a little hurt and very disappointed. The “crust” was made out of plantain, a banana like fruit, and everything else was just downhill from there. Probably it would be good if they gave it a different name! But it was surely not pizza. We We were okay though, we drank a yummy guanabana smoothie (also a new fruit for me) which was tasty stuff. And we ate some more traditional pizza that night 🙂 

Adios for now, friends! 💙💙