Hummingbirds, Drag Queens and everything in between

My last update went to 22 June, when I nearly got bitten by a rather deadly snake, and the first guests of my stay arrived. Eight of them in one night, in fact. Dave, Kathy and Matt were a parents + son group,  Ellen, Nicole and Jackie were a mum, daughter and aunt and Randy and Marilyn were two friends who'd met on a birding holiday in Honduras (I believe!) and organised a trip down to Rancho together. All were keen birders, enthusiastic and very friendly, and all brightened up my days immeasurably.

23 June saw an early start, as I accompanied Dave, Kathy and Matt on a walk around the rainforest at Rancho. With us was a professional guide, Herman (pronounced "airrr-man". It's fair to say that, having tried my hand at showing people the birds, I now hold guides such as Herman, Cali and Christian (the others I've met in my stay here) in a reverence I tend to withhold for the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Stephen Fry. Their powers border on the superhuman!

On this walk with Herman and our guests, we probably saw about 60 species. I've spent days where I'd walked my absolute arse off on these trails, and would count myself lucky to find 30! But then, years of experience can make anyone an expert in whatever field they dedicate themselves to.

As well as being an extremely knowledgeable and talented guide, Herman was very good fun. Focussed and kmowledgeable he may be when it comes to wildlife, but in general he emitted the same jovial, laid-back and good-natured vibe that's one of the most endearing characteristics of many Ticos. Between us we got some pretty good results for the guests! My personal favourite was the Moss Walking Stick, an insect so brilliantly camouflaged that in photos we took mere inches away, you'll still struggle to locate him! Hairs on his back grow in exactly the same colour and consistency as moss, making him near enough invisible until you get your eye in.

this is not a Stick Insect, but it's an insect. Close enough, right?... No?... poo you, I like the photo anyway

When we arrived back at Rancho I was treated to a gorgeous lunch. One of my favourite things about guests coming is the food that the frankly miraculous chefs produce. Lisa also liked all guides to eat with the guests, to create an atmosphere of comraderie one assumes, and it's very good fun, regaling each other with stories from the day. After lunch a baby Armadillo showed very well, displaying it's primary defense against predators; it's just too damn cute for anything to attack it!

That night I slept soundly, and was up again for 5 the following morning! I once again accompanied Herman, Dave, Kathy and Matt as we went 20 miles or so off site, to a steep river valley known as La Mina, somewhere along the banks of the Rio Pacuare. It was an absolutely magical location, great for all sorts of birds which was good news for us. The Sunbittern was the one Dave, Matt and Kathy (and me!) most wanted, and excellent views were had of this intriguing, heron-like bird as two fed in the boulder-strewn shores of the river. I don't have any photos (as a guide it's best not to take a camera out, as photography can distract you from finding stuff for the customer!), so here's a video gleaned from YouTube to give some idea of it's inherent awesomeness.

There was a lot of other gorgeous wildlife to gawk at too, mostly birds like the stupendously beautiful Violaceous Trogon, plus Ringed Kingfisher and Torrent Tyrannulet. There was also a beautiful Butterfly (I think it was some kind of Hairstreak), with an incredible defense against predators. Its head looks like its tail, and its tail looks like its head! Thus, should a bird swoop down and attempt to grab it 'head first', the butterfly can escape with only a slight roughing up of its wings. Nature is pretty damn ingenious sometimes.

That afternoon was spent mostly on the balcony at Rancho, where myself and all the guests had a great time with the birds. Hummingbirds of every description imaginable were flying by mere meters from our heads, encouraged in by the torrential rain, with some even perching on the balcony for shelter. In the trees beyond some good birds were picked up; Masked Tityra, Chestnut-headed Oropendola, Golden-olive Woodpecker etc. I shan't bore you all with a long list, but I shall instead say that even more enjoyable than the birding was the comraderie, the sense of teamwork among us. A day ago we were all strangers, but now in this remarkable place the nine of us were sitting together, laughing and occasionally raising our binoculars, on a Costa Rican balcony in a monsoon. Sometimes wildlife has a way of bringing strangers together that few other passions can match, from my experience perhaps only a shared love of music can be its equal. I think that afternoon will live long in the memory as one of the highlights of my trip.

Grey-headed Chachalaca, freakish looking bird seen from the balcony

I think this one gives you some idea of the rain we were having!

Brown Violet-ear; a fairly common Hummingbird to see from the Balcony

Unfortunately, all too soon la nueva disbanded. Dave, Kathy and Matt and Ellen, Nicole and Jackie all left at 9 in the morning on 25 June. This left myself, Randy and Marilyn holding up the fort. With another local guide, Christian, we went down to CATIE, a university campus with some fine wildlife. Most spectacular was a heronry that was barely 5 metres away on a small island on the University lake. Hundreds of birds packed it, mostly Cattle Egrets and Black-crowned Night Herons, with the few trees defying gravity in their ability to support so many (hundreds!) of nests.

Most beautiful was the colony of Leafcutter Ants that has taken to collecting the pink petals of Bougainvillea. From 30 yards away it looks as though tonnes of blossom is strewn in a remarkably neat, orderly line. As you get a bit closer, you see that the blossom is moving, and eventually you can sit down beside a stream of thousands of ants, all carrying their pink trophies back to the nest. I'm sure anyone who has been to a butterfly farm/most good zoos has seen Leafcutter Ants, so hopefully I don't need to explain what they do, but basically they cut fragments of leaves with their sharp pincers, and use them to build their nests. On any rainforest floor the path is typically strewn with lines of ants, all transporting foliage. These were the first ones I'd seen to use blossom though, and I think they take the mantle as the most gosh-darn fabulous things I've yet to encounter! It wouldn't surprise me if the nest rocks to the beat of some Elton John and YMCA.

Most cute at CATIE was the chicks of the Jacanas. Called 'Jesus Christ birds' in many countries for their ability to 'walk on water' (in reality they simply nimbly tread their way over Lilypads), the chicks were tiny, you could fit 10 in your hand with ease. How well they fare I don't know, as both Terrapins and Caimans (small crocodiles) inhabit this pond, and the chicks would seem to be a very easy snack.
After returning to Rancho we had another fine lunch, and I agreed I would take Marilyn and Randy out for a walk around the grounds at about 3. Unfortunately, the weather over the last few days has seen torrential rain every bloody afternoon, and today was no exception! We did a spot more balcony-birding, seeing a few nice things before dinner. It was to be my last dinner with the guests for quite a while, and I realised it would take some getting used to Rancho going quiet again!

On 26 June Randy and Marilyn left at about 9am. I did manage to get out with Marilyn early in the morning, showing her a few new birds like Golden-crowned Warbler and a stunning Violaceous Trogon. But then, after that, Rancho fell silent once more. I would love to come here in the dry season, when it is a beehive of activity, with every room often booked out. However, it can feel a bit isolated at times in the rainy season, a guest-house without many guests.

Violaceous Trogon, a splendid bird I was delighted to get for Marilyn

I managed to to a bit more walking the trails, though this time with Marcus, a 16-year old family friend of Lisa and Mario. He was staying here with his grandmother for a few days and, not being too interested in the birds, was probably a bit bored. I showed him some of the trails and we spotted a few interesting bits of wildlife, which I hope was a nice distraction for him. However, I will always remember this day more clearly as the day I saved the Hummingbird!

At about 12:30 I walked onto the balcony, to see a female Violet-crowned Woodnymph crawling around on the floor, in a small pool of blood. It didn't look in very good shape at all! I shouted out for Mario (Lisa's husband and co-manager of Rancho), who's presumably had to deal with this before, and who scooped the tiny little bird into his hands, before taking it over to the hummingbird feeder and gently encouraging it to feed. However, after five minutes or so little was happening, and Mario had other work to do, so I, feeling an intrepid sense of responsibility for this little birds life, took the reins.
It took about 20 minutes more of feeding the bird, and blowing on its underbelly to help keep it warm (as such small birds they are at grave risk of hypothermia if they become too inactive/don't eat enough), before the bird felt confident enough to stretch it's wings. For about two seconds I felt triumphant, then had a sinking feeling of horror as I realised the Hummer had vastly overestimated its own ability! It crashed down to the ground, still frantically flapping it's wings, spiralling down like a broken helicopter in one of those action movies where aliens/giant lizards/killer robots invade Manhattan.

Hummingbird in hand, gently persuading her to nectar from the feeders

I rushed downstairs and, to my relief it was still alive. Presumably it's flapping wasn't entirely in vain, as it had slowed up enough to make the landing quite safe. But it was still unable to fly at all, so I took her back up to the feeders on the balcony. Ten minutes then passed, repeating the cycle of feeding and blowing (no sniggering you dirty-minded freaks), and I was starting to lose hope. Depending on how long it had been on the balcony it may have already been in too grave a condition to be saved (they generally need to feed at least once every seven minutes, or so Mario said). I would wait until it made one more flight attempt, and if it still failed to get airborn I would, as heartbreaking as it felt, have to leave her under the cover of a bush somewhere and hope she somehow regained flight by herself. The chances of a recovery were not looking good. But then, miraculously, she took off, nonchalantly powering over to the closest small tree and settling into a perch among her kind, no doubt with an incredible story to tell them. As did I.
That night Mario took me out for some wonderful spanish karaoke in one of the local villages. Trying to sing in Spanish was a skill I think I actually achieved more masterfully than speaking the language, though being able to read it off of a screen probably also helped! We got home at about 8 and I forwent dinner, heading straight to bed.

The 27th was quite possibly the least eventful day of my trip so far. I woke up rather groggy, and after dinner put my TEFL (Teach English as a Foreign Language) training to some good use, devising a lesson for Rebecca. Except this was in Spanish! I actually know the language considerably less well than her, but my doing my research, (involving several hours looking in my dictionary and at online verb conjugation tables), I had come up with a half-decent lesson plan, teaching the regular conjugation of verbs in the present simple, past simple and future simple tenses. It was a bit different doing the lesson on Spanish, but to be honest the techniques my TEFL course have taught me can be easily translated into teaching other languages. I still have an awful lot to learn, but the more chances I get to do this the better!

I also managed to save another Hummer, albeit in less dramatic cirumstances. This one had somehow contrived to get stuck in the lounge, and was hovering against the window, wistfully gazing outside. I opened a door, but the bird was either comfy in its new home, or too stupid to notice when a chance for escape presented itself! I went to try and find some sort of net to catch it and set it free, but by the time I came back it had already flown out of its own accord.

*postscript- as I wrote this, a male White-necked Jacobin flew into the house, headbutted a window trying to get out, then flew away! Thank god I didn't have another casualty on my hands.
** second postscript- it's a day later, I'm STILL trying to find time to finish this, and another Jacobin got caught in the house! Again, thankfully, he made his way out again, but this is happening more often than I'd like.

White-necked Jacobin, this one displaying a most unusual behaviour of not flying indoors

On the 28th, Rebecca and I went into Turrialba for the day. It's a nice little town, with a very active town centre, plenty of shops and a market selling lots of fresh food. To be honest towns aren't really my number one interest in the world right now, so I hope you'll forgive me if I don't wax lyrical for too long! It was pretty, it was a good way to experience some 'real' Costa Rican culture (we noticed we were just about the only tourists around), and a good way to kill a few hours on an otherwise quiet day.

A street Raffle, with an excellent spanish band playing on the stage in the foreground. 

We got the bus back mid-afternoonish, and almost immediately we were off to a local fiesta organised in one of the villages! When Lisa sold it to me as a "fiesta", I perhaps had something different in mind than the reality, a church fete with family entertainment, but I enjoyed myself nontheless. It was a great chance to experience Costa Rica as a Tico, and not just a Gringo tourist, who'd probably never see this side of everyday life. There were lots of comedy sketches being put on by local actors and some fabulous drag queens, who put Shakira to shame (that's who they were all dressed up as/dancing to, I'm not saying she is one!). I wish I could say I got photographs as it's a hell of an experience, but I'm afraid I was too transfixed! It was also a weight of my shoulders once I'd seen the real culture of Los Ticos. Skim-reading Lonely Planet had led me to believe they might be a bit less, shall we say, open-minded than I'm used to, growing up so close to Brighton! But I feel fairly confident in saying that that's not the case in this area at all, and whoever wrote these sections clearly didn't spend too much time in the Central Valley!

Afterwards we went to a bar in the village for a few beers and stuff. I managed to play about 10 games of Table Football, winning, I think, just one, alongside Mario and two of his/Lisa's sons, Angelo and Cisco. Cisco in particular has been good company as, having lived in America for several years, he's completely bilingual! My Spanish still needs a lot of work so this is a blessing. I actually understand stuff like verb conjugation reasonably well, but am just struggling with the more 'basic' stuff like vocabulary! I'm also absolutely hopeless at understanding it when it's spoken to me at the moment.

my camera does not like artificial light (and I forgot to use Flash like the imbecile I am), but you can just about identify that it's table football being played.

Anyway, today was another quiet day, I felt a bit under the weather for a lot of the day, so regrettably didn't make it down to town to see the World Cup match being projected on a big screen! I can only imagine how much of an atmosphere I must have missed out on, based on the absolute fanatacism for football here, and how incredibly dramatic the ending was (if you didn't know, Costa Rica conceded an equaliser in injury time, somehow held on for 30 minutes of extra time with 10 men and then beat Greece on penalties!). The others showed me plenty of galling videos and pictures showing the kind of atmosphere I was missing out on.

celebrating an incredible victory! though I think I might clean my lens tomorrow...

This evening, I finally got out on a hunt for Owls and Nightjars. Wandering around a few of the paths in the pitch black was an incredible experience, and I heard calling Crested Owls, a good species which I hope I'll actually locate before guests arrive. But it was wonderfully exciting anyhow; the din of insects and frogs is breathtaking, and occasionally you'll hear a swooshing flap of wings as a bat quickly passes low over your head. Some of the frogs are so loud that they're actually quite startling when they call from right next to you! And the sky was stunning, one of rather few cloudless nights I've had here, but still with regular flashes of lightning from the east illuminating the landscape.

It is a bit frightening wandering around at night though, especially given I'm actually starting to get a bit scared of the snakes, what with moderately cheating death at the hands of that Fer-De-Lance! But rest assured, there wasn't a second my torch wasn't scanning the ground for any signs of them, unless I was trying to pick out Owls/Frogs in the trees. Thankfully, I didn't add to the list of deadly encounters today!

As I wrote this final part, and eventualy got the blog up to date, I even found a Cockroach in my room. It's the first I've seen here and in a bizarre way I'm quite glad. It didn't really feel like a jungle without one!

Anyway you merciless bastards, I don't know how long I've slaved away writing this for you, but its about damn time I slept. Love to you all, Liam :)

Nature is frightening....

So, if you read the last post, you'll know I had a "Boa", by the side of the path. Except it wasn't a Boa. Here's the photo again to refresh your memories.

The shape of the head, bulging out from the neck, rules out a Boa and makes it a Viper of some kind. Lisa suggests it's a Fer De Lance, and a Herpetologist (fancy word for snake expert) friend, Matt Bruce, also thought it looked a bit like one. Lisa said it could also be a Bushmaster, but Zac Hinchcliffe, who also knows a lot about snakes, did a bit of digging and suggests it might be a Picado's Jumping Viper. 

Whatever it is, I'm just quite glad I wasn't bitten. I saw it in second-growth vegetation at the side of the path, only noticing it out of the corner of my eye as I was walking right past it. It was bearing it's fangs, a visible sign of aggression, and it seems like it was pretty pissed to have me walk right past it. 

Anyway, I'm just very, very thankful I spotted it in time, as if I'd been bitten then, depending on what species it actually is, it seems like the consequences would range from a stay in the hospital (Picado's can cause internal bleeding), to a rather painful death (Fer De Lance's are one of the most, if not the most, venomous snakes in the America's). I was also about 30 minutes walk from the nearest people, so it would have been pretty difficult to even make it back and get help, if it was a truly toxic species.    

I'm feeling a bit shaken by the whole thing now, I've been interested in nature for such a long time, but never had any situation where I really felt I was in big trouble. Most animals are absolutely fine, as long as you show them a decent amount of respect and don't act like an idiot, and perhaps I'd been getting quite complacent. But this snake was very well-hidden in the side of the path, if I hadn't reacted in time there really wouldn't have been much I could do. 

But I do now have a cool story to tell everyone, and a new-found respect for the Snakes! Thankfully, it all worked out OK in the end! 

Welcome to the Jungle

Christ almighty, it feels hard to believe three days have gone by since I last wrote on here. With the first visitors coming to Rancho Naturalista today, things have been getting a lot more busy, but more on all that in a minute!
Thursday 19th June is where I ended on my last post, so I'll start by telling you about Friday 20th. To be honest, not too much happened. When walking about a mile away from the Ranch, I heard a mighty roar at about 10:44am. I took one look at the time, remembered a game was on and instantly new Costa Rica must have scored, nothing else could produce that noise! Sure enough they had, and their stunning 1-0 victory over Italy gave the staff of Rancho great cause for celebration, as we huddled around the sole tiny, fuzzy TV. It was such a remarkable moment that I was almost able to forget that it was sending England out! However, the most "memorable" thing about Friday was probably the Fire Ants. Mi dios, the bloody, "insult suggesting incestuous relationship with maternal figure" Fire Ants...
I went for a hike, practicing more bird identifcation for when guests would eventually arrive. I still wasn't accustomed to the heat, or the altitude, and even a gentle 1km walk or so was knackering me a bit, so I made frequent stops. And I wasn't really concentrating, or in a great mindset, owing to this. So I wasn't really thinking about where I was putting my feet... I sat down on a rock, for perhaps a minute or so, until a sharp pain on my left calf jolted me to attention. An ant, a fairly painful one, but I'd had a few bites today and I wasn't that concerned. But oh no. Oh sweet Jesus, there's more than one here!
I'm afraid even a sailor would turn white as a sheet at the language used. I'd stepped on a nest of Fire Ants, so named as their bite gives a distinct burning sensation. In reality, probably only 100 or so had made it onto my boot and leg, but it felt like millions; I hopped around madly in a futile effort to shake them off of my left boot with violent air-kicks. To any passing observer I might have been hokey-kokeying. Then reason kicked in, and I realised the only way I was going to settle this was to take my shoe off. Untying the laces resulted in a lot of bites on my hands, and an awful lot more swearing!

I was a bit preoccupied to photograph the Fire Ants, but here's another insect that doesn't look too friendly. Damn nature, you scary.  

I sat then, for about 10 minutes, mustering up the willpower to do anything, knowing that I was going to get bitten again. That knowledge was 10 time more agonising than the bite itself. eventually I picked up the shoe, held it by the relatively ant-free laces, and bashed it three times against a tree trunk. This seemed to shake most of the ants off, and the 15 or so remaining were squashed with the hard end of my laces, with vindictive, sadistic, triumphant pleasure. I then had to shake them out of the inside of my shoe, and finally, I was good to go. My leg was somewhat blotchy and swollen, and I left that experience a wiser man. The jungle's a scary place...
That evening, another volunteer, Rebecca, arrived. German-born, Dutch-educated and on the last leg of an epic years travelling, taking in South-east Asia, New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii already. While she's not here for the wildlife as I am, she's proving a delight to the staff, helping out in almost every way possible, from mucking out the horses to working in the kitchen. In some ways I'm rather jealous of the greater variety of tasks she's doing, as learning the birds off by heart was, to be honest, beginning to feel slightly more like a chore than a pleasure.

I say that, I post this video, and I understand how little sympathy you feel for me. One of the hummingbird feeders on the balcony at Rancho. 

That all changed as soon as guests arrived though. I can't quite explain it, but I actually get far more pleasure out of showing someone else the wildlife I've slaved away hours learning to identify, rather than just looking at it myself. The hikes up into the trails were getting kind of lonely, especially given there was no-one else around with a keen interest in the wildlife bar Lisa, and she's understandably rather time-limited as she attempts to run the whole operation. The guests also seem to revitalise the whole ranch, a guest-house without guests never quite has the same vibe. But sharing the experience of showing stunning birds, butterflies and even some brightly-coloured beetles to guests of Rancho is enormously worthwhile. My first guided walk of sorts was today, with a father/son duo named David and Matthew who have come over from California. Though I'm not actually allowed to charge money until I'm the sort of zen-level expert who can identify 300 jungle birds by scent and telepathy, I did get a $20 tip for taking them out for two hours, showing them specialities like the Snowcap hummingbird and the Montezuma Oropendola, a frankly ridiculous creature that science ought one day to prove is an evolutionary steeping stone between birds and dinosaurs. It won't, because that's crazy, but it should anyway. But I digress, at the risk of sounding like an awful and recycled cliche, the money wasn't that important. The joy of sharing my hard-earned knowledge and seeing their reactions was what felt fantastic, as was the experience I gained and the knowledge that, with a lot more practice at identifying the wildlife, I might not suck too terribly at this guiding lark. Hopefully.
Anyway, what else have I been up to? Well I had another encounter with a Boa today. Hiking along the Pepper trail at about 9am, I wasn't really paying attention, but at any rate it was difficult to spot as it was in the grass at the side of the path. As I was walking right past it, I noticed something in the corner of my eye, turned and saw a rather large snake baring it's fangs at me! I thought it was a Viper and was planning to strike, and so beat a VERY hasty retreat back up the path, before planning how to get by.

my second encounter with a Boa

I still didn't realise it was a Boa, and thus was likely to be quite docile and non-venomous. The markings looked vaguely like a Fer-de-Lance (ok not to a herpetologist, but I was panicking) and I was thinking the worst, as you do in that kind of situation. I also wasn't expecting a Boa to bear it's fangs and hiss like that, a rather frightening experience!
My first plan of attack was to try and scare it away, first by clapping and stomping very loudly, and then by throwing sticks at it. The second one I threw hit it squarely on the head, but it just stared at me, a cold, indifferent, hungry longing in its eyes. Great, now I'd pissed off the Snake, not scared it off, and I still had no idea if it was some toxic viper that would leave me vomiting, collapsing and eventually palpitating off into the ether if it bit me! I therefore decided to take a sneaky route, wandering off the track and beating my way through the forest for 20 metres or so. Not really the smartest idea, as I could easily have stepped on an actual Fer-de-Lance, but it did the trick and I came out the other side of the 'dangerous' snake. It was only when I got home, and reviewed the photos I'd taken (yes I took photos of the snake I thought might be capable of killing me, it's just morbid curiosity), that I realised this was a sweet, delightful and relatively non-harmful Boa Constrictor, much like the one I'd nearly stepped on on Thursday. I felt the biggest wuss, hacking my way through vines and ferns to escape a gentle little Boa. He'd probably only bore his fangs as a warning because I'd gotten too close.
I think that covers all the salient points of the last three days. Before today it was quite relaxing, yesterday Lisa, Rebecca and I spent a few hours at a local pool as there wasn't too much else going on, and in the evening there ensued an epic game of chess. I was all set to win, with something like King, two Knights, Bishop, Castle and Pawn on the board, while Rebecca only had two Pawns, a King, a Bishop and a Castle, but I was so tired I fell spectacularly into a trap where her Bishop wiped out my King. I shall most definitely need a rematch at some stage, that loss felt as bitter as my US friends must have felt today, robbed of a stunning victory with the last kick of the ball!
Also I've been weaned off the Gallo Pinto (Black Beans, Rice and Chicken) now, as the diet becomes slightly more flamboyant with guests arriving. The variety of food is nice, but at the same time I was enjoying the Gallo Pinto diet, a mixture of that and a lot of walking up hills at high altitude is probably doing me a world of good health-wise. But still, there's many miles of trails left to explore!

Hasta Luego
Liam :)

this photo is irrelevant to the post, but I like it anyway!

Touchdown

standing outside the house at some ungodly hour for the last time in a month, with a month's supplies heaped on my shoulders

The story begins at about 05:45 BST, Wednesday 18 June, when I was awakened and got into the car, with a rucksack full of belongings to last a month, and driven up to Gatwick. However, despite the fact that my flight left Heathrow at 12:05, if I'd gotten up any later than this I might not have made it at all!

Mum and Dad drove me to Gatwick, where I got onto a National Express coach heading for Heathrow. Because we got there slightly earlier than expected, I managed to score a place on a coach leaving at 8, rather than the one I'd booked for 8.35. This meant a very quick goodbye as I had to dash onto the coach, last time I'd be seeing them for a month or so. In a way it was a bit of a relief not to have to draw out our goodbyes too much, and rushing for the coach gave me something else to focus on, rather than the fact I was leaving the country on my own for the very first time. It was only meant to take an hour to get there, but of course NE had conveniently ignored the fact that the coach was heading up the M25 in rush hour in their time estimation! I got off the coach at 10, and by the time I'd got to the terminal, checked in and gone through security I had half an hour to wait until the gate opened at 11:20, with the gate itself being a 15 minute walk away. Thank bloody god I didn't get the coach 35 minutes later!

One of the best coincidences I can imagine happened when I was waiting for the gate though; family friend Mike Force appeared! I'd known he was leaving Heathrow on the same day as me, as he'd been staying with us that very weekend, but he was meant to be at a different terminal! Turns out this was the first day in the history of AirCanada that they'd changed their flights to Terminal 2 instead, and so I had a nice but far too brief chat with Mike, feeling rather guilty that I'd had to rush him to the end of a brilliant story so that I could get to the gate in time.

The flight was punctuated by a stopover in Newark airport, one of several that feeds New York. During this time I bumped into a fellow traveller, an Irish Med Student called Katie, who was getting on the same flight before travelling down to Panama for her own voluntary work. Time passed in the airport a lot quicker with someone to talk to, and before I knew it, our two hours were up, and we boarded the final flight.

the first time I've ever actually seen New York. Having studied google maps for two minutes I think Greenwood Cemetery is the area of green visible; you can see Brooklyn, and Queens might just be visible in the top left hand of the picture. My apologies that the plane wing decided it was a perfect opportunity for a photobomb. 

As we got down into the tropics, there were some spectacular lightning storms over Cuba, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. It was the first time I've seen lightning from above and it's one of the most stunning things I've ever seen, for a brief second he whole sky below you seems to be illuminated. I managed to get a video as we flew over Nicaragua.

Soon after we arrived in Costa Rica I was met my Lisa Erb. Manager of Rancho Naturalista, she's Californian-born but has lived here since 1984, with her parents running the reserve before her. She drove me the 50 miles from San Jose airport to Rancho Naturalista, but up winding mountain roads it took about three hours! The same storms that had produced such spectacular lightning also produced fog as thick as soup in the mountains, which Lisa, thankfully, could still navigate expertly. Once we'd got through the worst of the fog she said, calm as you like; "I didn't want to worry you back there, but if we'd gone off the road it would have been about a thousand foot drop til we hit the bottom". I'm quite pleased I didn't know that at the time really.

We arrived at Rancho at about half past twelve, Costa Rican time. It was only now that I realised I'd gone about 26 hours without sleep, and I promptly crashed like a log, once I'd sent a Facebook message to Mum and Dad to comfirm I was still alive!

I was up again by about 05:30 though, partly due to the sound of torrential rain and partly because I was too excited to sleep any longer! Strolling out of the bedroom and round the corner I sauntered onto the balcony, where despite the rain 20+ Hummingbirds were making a symphony of buzzing and chirping, on the feeders placed here as an attraction for the many bird-lovers who pay visit to Rancho. The birders reading this will of course want to know what they were! The stunning White-necked Jacobin and Violet-crowned Woodnymph were commonest, with Brown Violet-ear, Green Hermit, Green-breasted Mango and Violet Sabrewing all appearing too. The very names conjure up images of vivid colours, even if you've no idea what they look like!

Green-breasted Mango

Breakfast was black beans and rice, with roasted sugar beet for some added sweetness. I've not had any type of bean for breakfast since the far-away days of beans-on-toast when I was seven or eight, but this was delicious! I've fallen hopelessly in love with Costa Rican food. I also felt compelled to try the celebrated local coffee, despite never once being a coffee drinker before. I can see why that too is celebrated! 

After breakfast, Lisa suggested I take a hike around some of the trails through the rainforest, and I was only too happy to oblige. If I'm going to be doing any guide work I'll need to know what I'm looking at! Though it does seem unlikely I'll do much guiding, purely because I'm fairly inexperienced with Costa Rican wildlife, and most of those visiting are so keen and knowledgeable that only a real expert will suffice. But I'm happy enough to get free lodging and food, help out with everything I can, get some wonderful experiences and perhaps do the guiding if some more casual enthusiasts come along.

One of the hiking trails into the Rainforest. It's not a Dutch angle, the trees are just growing on a slope!

Anyway, in the rainforest I naturally saw plenty more. I shan't bore you all with the details of every single creature, but an incredible highlight was a Boa Constrictor that I was rather close to stepping on! Mercifully, I'd had the good fortune to encounter just about the only non-venomous snake in the reserve. If I'd trodden on a Fer Le Dance, I can assure you quite confidently that I would not be writing this blog right now! But I did get some photos of this four foot beast (note, this is where the Ophidiphobes like Ami, if you're reading this, really ought to scroll down rather quickly!).

Once back from that, I had lunch with everyone at Rancho, Lisa caught an Armadillo (yes, she actually went out and just picked an Armadillo off the ground, Armadillo's are great and I could write a whole blog about one), I watched in agony as we threw away any realistic hope in the World Cup, and the typical evening thunderstorm came rolling in at about 5pm. It's now 6.30 and, to be honest, I'll probably go to bed quite soon! It's dark already here, weird thinking that it's only two days until Summer Solstice at home.

I hope everyone back in Old Blightly is having a lovely time. Who even cares about the football anyway?

Hasta Luego

Liam

wanderlust

Howdee

I can't be bothered with a long introduction, any of you lovely enough to click on this blog (and at the moment you're doing nothing except registering a hit for it), know the purpose of it! I'm lucky enough to be travelling to Costa Rica, for a month of voluntary work. I'll be catching the flight in approximately 16 hours and three minutes as I write this.
It is bound to be daunting, challenging, exciting and a huge amount of fun, and I hope I'll come out of it with a few half-interesting anecdotes to bore people to hell with for the rest of the summer. I'm staying at a nature reserve called Rancho Naturalista, about 900 metres above sea level in the Cloud Forest (ecologists name for high-altitude rainforest). There seems to be a fair variety of odds and ends I will be doing, from giving guided walks to visitors to refilling hummingbird feeders, through raking leaves off of paths and pointing out/identifying birds to tourists and visitors on the balcony every morning. While getting a free breakfast. In Costa Rica. If there's a god up there somewhere, I must be in his good books!
I'll be keeping you all updated here with fascinating stories, stunning photos and a wit that makes Oscar Wilde look like a slack-jawed yokel, or so I hope. In reality, I'll probably be trying to piece together a coherent sentence as I collapse back into my cabin every night desperate for the sweet embrace of a tropical nights slumber. But it'll let you all know what I'm up to, which is the main purpose of this blog. When my Mum and dad were off travelling the world, they only sent a postcard back every few months! In some ways I'd love to do that too, but keeping in touch with everyone will be good, and it means you can start getting bored by my constant anecdotes almost as soon as they've happened.
Would write more, but I want to go watch Brazil-Mexico and I think I've probably written loads already.
Hasta Luego! :-)