Agoutis

Now Molly and I are ensconced in our latest accommodation: the Hotel Pura Vida, a very nice budget room with two beds, more than enough floor space for our suitcases, and a little wrap-around porch — and hot water in the shower!

After we settled in, we went to lunch at a nice but pricy restaurant (Costa Rica is quite expensive) and then decided to take a taxi over to the Finca La Isla botanical garden. After we paid our admission, a nice young man offered us fresh araí§í¡ juice and a sampling of other fruits in season from their garden: star fruit, durian (it tasted like onion and garlic in honey, not a flavor I need to experience again), kumquat, kapel and charichuelo [fruit names courtesy of Molly, who took notes], and also some artisan chocolate. Then the garden closed but we stayed on, trying to follow their map through bromeliad garden and rainforest and orchard where abundant red poison dart frogs were everywhere. I’m a very bad spotter of wildlife, even when someone pulls me close to their side and points out something, as happened earlier today when Peter tried to show me a toucan. But I spotted my first creature on my own: an agouti! He was so cute: a highlight of my day. When I grow up, I’m going to BE an agouti, and marry one. I didn’t have my camera with me so I don’t have evidence. I was thoroughly lost in the garden, despite pieces of surfboard hammered into the ground at erratic intervals as signposts, but fortunately Molly has a better sense of direction than I, and we found our way out again.

We walked down a rocky road toward aptly named Black Sand Beach and then followed it for half a mile back to Puerto Viejo. Someone had put a crab in a liter plastic bottle and left it in the ocean. What cruel irony, for the crab to be floating in the ocean but unable to get out, sort of like what it would he been like if we’d been stuck in the treehouse for the rest of our natural lives. We opened the top so it could get out.

[Photo courtesy of Molly]

Once back on the streets of PV, Molly spotted the same man who had given us the fruit yesterday, so we waved at each other. Then Molly and I had a nice dinner at Restaurante Lidia just a block from here, where I had patacones (fried mashed plantains) with guacamole and Molly had a Caribbean beef dish. For the second time today, we were lucky enough to arrive at the restaurant just before closing.

Back in the room, we played with blog posts and Facebook until the power went out suddenly in a brief heavy rain. I realized how hot it is when there’s no fan blowing on you. When the power came back on, we could hear people in neighborhood buildings clapping. And that’s the end of my story.