Costa Rica, Part II

I live my regular life in a tourist destination. While waiting for the bus home after a day of work, after the gym, eating a banana, and mentally listing what I need from the grocery store, inevitably three duck tours will go by and every tourist on them will snap of picture of the church in Copley Square, with me in the foreground rummaging through my bag. I can balance my phone, a latte, and my reading material, in heels, crossing Boylston St. with the same grace as the helmetless hurricane enduring renegade biker in Costa Rica. But on vacation our roles do reverse, and I become the tourist who snaps pictures of...a squirrel.
I embrace my inner tourist.
Our first two full days in Costa Rica were spent on tours to see the famed wildlife. There is a beautiful protected forest in Manuel Antonio, just off the ocean. Our guide impressed us with his abililty to spot bats in trees twenty feet above us, camoflauged Jesus Christ lizards, three toed sloths hanging around and insects-- colorful (grasshoppers) and famous (leaf cutting ants straight from a PBS special. Of which I intrepidly filmed two videos on my camera). The heat, humidity, jungle itself and the wildlife prompted my mom to comment that this was like the best kind of zoo. Indeed!
We hit the beach in the afternoons. The water in the equatorial Pacific bears no resemblance to Northern Atlantic water at all, except being wet. It was so warm I'd hazard to say it wasn't even refreshing! Families on the beach interacted happily-- several generations would play a game of soccer together with the requisite adopted dog jumping in. We read and enjoyed happy hour (two for one margaritas-- never mind that a margarita is more of a Mexican drink).
In a mangrove boat trip, our guide spotted a crocodile snacking on a dog and impressed us with all manner of bird and animal imitations. He also deftly navigated American humor; when asked what kind of animals might prey on the Jesus Christ lizard, he answered, "Oh, hawks mostly. But only the sacreligious kind!" Or when driving across an especially precarious bridge, he asked if we knew what the name of this bridge was? "The Oh-My-God bridge!" The humor was sometimes unintentional-- an alcholic concoction made of the bark of a native tree that became more potent as the weather gets hotter through the day was said to be "illegal in any other country, but here it is an appetizer."
Our tourist destiny was fulfilled by approaching and befriending the "friendly" group of white faced Capuchin monkeys. Half a dozen or more jumped out of the trees and into our boat, on our heads and eagerly snatched bananas* out of our hands. They are clever devils and not to be trusted because in short, they are smarter than us. One of them had no problems peeing on my mother while reaching out for a banana at the same time!
Time in Manuel Antonio was winding to a close-- we would travel to Jaco and Monteverde before the week's end.

*feeding bananas to the white faced monkeys is actually not recommended; it is not a native food, it causes them to become dependent on people and thus become overly trusting. They also need to travel through the trees many, many kilometers a day to stay fit, and if they know people will feed them, they will not do this. In short, we become the McDonald's of the monkey kingdom.

next up: surviving International Night and keeping our heads in the clouds.