Matapalo II

Tuesday, March 18. who let nature in?
Another hot one today.  Jo, my sister and me were up by 6 am for a nature walk.  BIL stayed in bed, still in mourning for his non-functioning camera.  Why is it easier to get up early here than ay home? We walked down our road back to where we saw the coati a few days ago.  We saw many, many howler monkeys, which was now a common occurrence, and some large blue morphin butterflies, a photographer's nightmare.  We also saw several agoutis.  However, it was far to busy to expect much else.  There were many pickup trucks loaded with people riding to work at the nearby resort, and many small motor bikes and quads taking children to school.  Our little riverbed road was like a freeway.  Last time I get up early here.  During coffee on the deck, I watched a pod of dolphins in front of our place.  In the afternoon, we walked two beaches down to the "safe beach" where there was less surf.  The water was a shock to my system.  Many of my showers are colder than this, in fact, this was the warmest non-hotsprings water I have ever experienced outside of a bathtub.  While the average water temp. here was 85degrees F., but this was downright hot in places.  We looked for cool spots.  I did not think I would ever say this but this was too warm to be refreshing.  I cooled down by getting wet, and standing in the shade, without drying myself.
It is dark here by just after 6pm each day, so we usually have happy hour, consisting of a rum punch until dark, before starting dinner preparations.  Tonight the downside of open air construction reared its head again.  While eating, tiny bugs attracted by the light buzzed around our heads.  After BIL removed a giant, ugly cicada from our kitchen tap, (where is Colleen when you need her?), I was under siege by tiny flys that devoted their energy to walking up my shirt and doing fly-bys in my face.  I had to find a dark corner to read and blog on my ipad.  Several more cicadas and a large crab also dropped in.  While cicada noise can drive you crazy, having them go off in your house for a prolonged period of time can kill you.  In addition to the unwelcome wildlife, it was also a warm, muggy evening.  You would have to shower every hour or so to feel fresh around here.

Wednesday, March 19 "I could go crazy if I let myself"
I woke to the sound of macaws and toucans, which disappeared when I got up at 7am.  These days I don't sleep much beyond 7am.  It was already hot in the sun.  We sat around much of the morning then drove a bone-jarring 60 minutes to a cocoa farm for a tour.  It was quite interesting, showing how cocoa beans are grown and processed into chocolate.  The tour ended with various fruits we could eat with a warm chocolate sauce, and a cake made with 100percent pure chocolate.  On route to the tour, on our extremely rough road which required us to drive through two streams, we saw a squirrel monkey.  On the way home, we saw several large green parrots.  I then saw a coatimundi  ross the road  ahead, and go into the bush.  I was driving, and stopped where I saw him go in.  He was still on the edge of the forest, and jumped into a tree.  As I opened my window and got ready to take a picture, two girls pulled up, stopped right between us and the coati, and asked what we were looking at.  End of opportunity to get a picture.  Just as we were getting ready to leave for the tour, I had loaded my camera into the car and turned on the AC, I walked to the back deck just in time to see a coati walk a ross the yard.  All morning we sat there with cameras ready, and saw nothing, and the minute I am without a camera, this guy saunters by.  Now these girls blow a second chance at a picture!
As I sit here, in the dark at 9pm, avoiding all the bugs that are attracted to our lights, I, like everyone else, am hot and sweaty. We have felt this way since arriving in Matapalo.  It is hot during the day, and in the evening it sometimes feels like it gets hotter, mainly because there is no breeze.  We face west and the sea breezes seem to not reach us.  Going from inside to outside makes no difference, and there is not even a slight variation when you step from inside into the yard.  If you think about it too much, you can almost go into panic mode, knowing that you will feel hot like this all night and all day tomorrow, until we step into our car on Friday.  The only relief is a few minutes in the shower and in bed, where there is a small fan attached to the bedpost.

Thursday, March 20. Tag, you're it.
What a horrible night I had.  I kept waking up with very itchy hands, arms and back.  Despite how warm it was, I had to crawl under the sheets.  Then at 5 am I got a calf cramp and had to crawl out of bed and find the exit in the mosquito net.  For the rest of the day my leg hurt and I needed to be careful so it did not cramp again.  Before I crawled back into bed, I thought I should go to the bathroom.  Good plan.  I had major diarrhea much like Jo had earlier.  Rather than going back to bed, I crawled into a hammock in the back.  This was at 5:30!  I slept only a little, and spent the rest of the day in my chair ir hammock, drinking water only and a few crackers for lunch.  Our doctor had given us antibiotic drugs just in case, and they were put to good use.  I did miss happy hour and evening wine.  Jo wanted to go to the beach down the road, but it felt too far away in the heat, so she explored the tidal pools in front of our place instead.  This was our last day here, and despite all the reviews which talked about daily visits from monkeys, toucans, etc., we had not seen any on the property, although we did find them in other places. At 3:30, we heard howler monkeys and soon saw them overhead.  Not long after that, two toucans dropped in.  I also photographed some parakeets that live next door, but were usually hidden in the tall trees.  For the past few days we had a coatimundi walk
across our yard, but naturally, never when I was near my camera.  We expected this guy to make an appearance before dark but he did not show.  After a delicious dinner of chicken noodle soup with undercooked rice, we enjoyed our last evening being covered in little bugs and longing for air conditioning.  Looking back, I do mot think I would return to this area of the country.  I think it attracts a kind of hippie, surfer dood audience, unless you are rich and stay in exclusive resorts, and fly into areas you want to explore.  I cannot understand why people would choose the open concept, where you are always fighting off bugs every night and there is mo relief from the heat.  Our main goal was to hike in the nearby national park, but the government made that more difficult so we did not do any of the things we hoped to do.  The local road is a nightmare and I don't know how you would get around if it rained hard and the creeks that cross the road rise.  Nevertheless, the house was  a neat experience, at least during the day and we did see more great wildlife.

Friday, March 21. North to Tamarindo
Travel day. We had to get up at 5:15am, for our 6:30 departure, but it was almost a relief to get up.  Despite our bed being surrounded with netting, we had a mosquito tormenting us and requiring us to cover up in spite of the heat.  It was difficult to sleep with an itchy arm.  I was however feeling 100% again.  We left on schedule and did see a few exotic birds along the way.  We were happy to negotiate the rocky road for the last time.  We returned our rental vehicle in Dominical, but the rental office was closed.  Henry, our driver from Tamarindo, met us at the office and was excellent help.  He had left home at 4:30am to make sure he would be here on time!  He immediately called the head office of the rental company to find out what was going on.  He was told we could just park the car and drop off the keys at the reception desk of the hotel that the rental company was in.  He then got out his phone and made photos of the car from all angles, in case there was any claim of damage after we left.  Later in the day he also called again to find out what was happening, but was told he had to call the local office direct.  It was a seven hour trip from Dominical to Tamarindo, including lunch at Steve n Lisa's, a restaurant near Tarcoles that we had eaten at in 2007. and grocery shopping along the way.  While we would consider the long day  Henry had not worth what he was getting paid for it, he was very pleased that we had use him a second time, and we agreed to hire him to bring us to the airport next Friday as well.  He was also asked to provide us with details on potential tours we might hire him for.
We were back in the same unit we were in two weeks earlier by 6:30pm.  Having had a traditional local meal of rice, beans, shrimp, meat or chicken, and fried banana at lunch, there were those among us who had some lunatic notion that we had already had our dinner at lunchtime, and since we had done nothing but sit in a car since, we did not need dinner.  I was at a loss for words!  For one thing, I had done far more than just sit around.  I carried on conversations with a Spanish speaking man with pretty good, but not fluent English, and worked hard at keeping my eyes open despite other urges. This would also mean going about  nineteen hours without a meal.  Police would probably come to find out whether our hunger strike was politically motivated.  There was no English language pizza delivery service that we could find, but in the end, there was a frozen dish of rice leftovers that I
heated up.  Surprisingly, then everybody ate.  We enjoyed an evening sitting out on our patio, enjoying a nice breeze and a pleasant evening without being overcome by bugs.  Pura vida!
It was also nice that the locals were so happy to have us back, that they put on a fireworks display for us, where we had a bird's-eye view! It was good that the people at the weekend rodeo festivities could also enjoy it.