bear suits and potentially poisonous ferns: welcome to paradise

If Harper were a sedentary Homo Sapiens, she would definitely be assigned the task of ‘gatherer‘. This I concluded as we climbed down the mossy rock steps that lead from our new house to a real (unsewag-ey) river. After walking for only a few minutes, I looked to find Harper proudly grasping a collection of jungle leaves in her tiny hands. It wasn’t until I heard the telltale gagging sound that I realized she was also tasting her rainforest harvest. Don’t worry, I quickly plunged my finger in her little mouth and retrieved a large piece of fern which Rivers assured me was “probably not poisonous...well actually, I´m not sure. But probably not.“ And this only on day 1 of our new Costa Rican adventure…

This past week we spent packing and cleaning our old place in Ciudad Colon in preparation to move to San Gerardo, a little (population 200) town at the foot of Chirripo, the largest volcano in Costa Rica. It was actually quite sad driving out of our little compound in Brasil de Mora, watching all the neighbors standing outside their homes to wave us goodbye. Most of them were probably glad that the messy, hippie gringos were heading out, but not Big Mama. No, no…Big Mama shed tears as she bid us farewell, promising that she and her family would make the 4 hour drive out to visit us. She even called us the day after we arrived in Chirripo, just to check in. What a great lady.

Our new place of residence is beautiful beyond description. I have to admit that initially I wasn’t too excited about moving to a remote village where the center of ‘town’ consists of a Catholic Church and a 20ft X 50ft grocery store. My hesitation was mostly symptomatic of the ’over-protective mom syndrome’ (ie. Where is the nearest hospital? Do they have baby Tylenol? Do they sell vegetables in case we run out of the 50 jars of baby food I stocked-up on just in case they don‘t, in fact, sell vegetables?….and other such silly questions). Luckily, all of my anxieties withered away as we set foot in our 2 story, hardwood cabin with hot running water, 2 Jacuzzi baths and toilets that flush toilet paper. Oh…My….Gosh. It’s been two days, and the novelty of hot water has definitely not worn off. As I was washing dishes after dinner yesterday, I raved to Rivs about how wonderful it was to actually have squeaky clean dinnerware. We began talking about the wonders of hot plumbing, and it took a few minutes for us to figure out if we had hot running water in Hawaii. How quickly we forget….Also, I keep throwing toilet paper into the trashcan, forgetting that these San Gerardo bad boys can actually handle the fibrous paper. Living here will be a good transition back to life in the USA.

As if those luxuries weren’t enough, yesterday morning Rivs woke me up to see a beautiful sunrise over the misty rainforest mountains through our bedroom that has no walls, just windows. Not that we’re exhibitionists, but just in case you were wondering how the lack o’ privacy goes over in our new town, our nearest neighbors are…well…I don’t know because we can’t see them, and hopefully they can’t see us. If they could, they would be in for a real treat. Have you ever watched a married couple lay in bed reading Harry Potter side by side? Hot and heavy, let me tell you…

Later that morning, when we went to investigate the constant tapping noise coming from our window-walls, we found a little blue parrot trying to get in our house. Not long after, 2 toucans arrived on the scene to check out our apparently bird-attracting windows. Later in the day, 4 more toucans of a different variety perched on the tree outside our room, scaring way the other birds (toucans are like the bully birds of the jungle. They even eat other birds’ eggs. Now I understand what Toucan Sam is ´just following his nose´ to. Jerk.) The whole day I had the “World Animals: Tropical Bird” Baby Einstein theme music in my head. Harper must have felt like she was the main actor in the show, because she was so excited all day long, even if she has to wear a second hand bear suit all day since it´s the only thing we could find warm enough for her up here in the mountains... Yup, we like this place a whole lot. (And just in case you think we’ve splurged on our new crib, it’s only $500 a month. So there.) Oh, and by the by...I did chop off the rest of my hair, in case you were wondering.