Matt, the scorpion killer.

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Dia 4 (written by Matt today)

So this morning seemed normal, until we started to walk to the sanctuary. The rain last night was much harder than it has been since we got here, and it continued into the morning quite a bit. All of the roads were completely under water. We had muddy rain water up to our ankles for the majority of the walk to Rainsong. It seems that this was above average waterfall for the area, as many of the locals had surprised looks on their faces as they waded through the water.

We made it to the sanctuary drenched, even everything under our ponchos were wet. Today we got to stay at the sanctuary like we did yesterday. To start the day we met and fed the porcupines. We cut up some papaya and plantains, covered those with some vitamins, and then topped it off with some sprouts. There was also the option of feeding them Mary's leftover pasta from last night, but the fruit was already cut up.

We entered the cage and put the food down, and instantly we had some friendly porcupines crawling all over us. They are much more affectionate and happy to be around people than I would have ever guessed. Of course, these porcupines were raised by humans, but I never would have thought porcupines are soft.

After we had our fill of playing with porcupines, it was time to feed the monkeys. There are four monkeys, one older one named Mona, and some younger ones. We entered their habitat (walking past that huge spider we had an encounter with yesterday) and let them climb up onto whichever human they preferred.

We then walked them back to a sitting area where we got to hang out with them and feed them milk from bottles. The monkeys were very picky, and would try to steal the bottles from each other. Mona, the feisty oldest monkey, bit Zoe in the knuckle pretty hard. Don't worry, Zoe is OK, she got some stuff on it right away, and the monkeys have been tested negative for rabies.

When the monkeys had had their fill, we moved onto feeding the parrots. We did the same thing we did yesterday, with one major difference. Today, while getting the food containers from the cage containing the two larger parrots, I was confronted with a scorpion. This scorpion walked up the door and inches away from my hand as I was leaving the cage. I did not notice this until Zoe told me to get away and screamed. After getting away I looked back and did not see a scorpion at all. The scorpion was still there, he was just pretty small.

I was pretty freaked out, so I went and talked to some other volunteers about what to do. One of them suggested using a knife and shooing it away. When we got back, Mary gave me a machete and told me to kill it. After a bit of a fight getting it to move to a location where I could smash it, I did exactly that. And my encounter with the scorpion was over.

This was the end of our day at the sanctuary, and we started our walk home. The walk home was much drier, as the rain had slowed down drastically. We stopped at the supermarket (Super David's) and bought some snack foods.
Once we got back to the hotel, we peeled off our wet clothes, rinsed ourselves and dried off. We came to find out that our shower had leaked into the lobby below, so we had to switch rooms. We are now in room #24. We were in room #22, which was very cool considering that is the day we got married.
We just finished eating our lunch of tortilla's, rice, avocado, and beans that Zoe put together (it was delicious). And now we plan to relax for the rest of the day.
Now that you know why I do not write these posts (all posts would be ridiculously long if I did) I will let you go.

Love,
Matt and Zoe

We have too much time on our hands.

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Dia 3

Matthew and I saw a spider today. And incidentally, I have a spider bite on my leg... haha no worries though, it's normal and I'm watching it. We only volunteered for a couple hours today and everything was done quickly so we got to go home early. All we had to do was hang out with some parrots, clean their cages, and get them new food. On our walk back, we stopped at a bakery. They are also a restaurant but I forgot the word for menu so I couldn't order any lunch. We just bought this flaky pastry that had a little sugar on it and that was pretty delicious. We sat at a table behind the bakery and some cows watched us eat. We also finally decided it would be a good idea to buy ponchos since we are indeed in a rain forest. Additionally, on our walk to Rainsong this morning, we heard what was either a puma or a jaguar. It sounded like it was pretty far off in the jungle but either way, it was a little unnerving. We soothed our fears by coming back to the hotel, taking a nap, and then making plantains with cheese. Yum. We have yet to meet any sea turtles and I am starting to believe we actually won't. But we did meet a very friendly porcupine today, so that kind of makes up for it. I bought a coke in a glass bottle today, and I swear it tastes much better than the soda we have in the States. There are only four ingredients in it. Matt bought a beer at 1 in the afternoon and he said it tastes like Bud Light. That's all for now, adios!

Love,

Matt and Zoe

Travel and First Day

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Hola from Costa Rica!! We wanted to let everyone know how our honeymoon was going, and we figured this would be the easiest way to explain it to everyone.

Dia 1

So this may have been the strangest day of our entire lives. The flights went really smoothly. Ironic side story, Sean Phillips from high school was on our connection to Ft. Lauderdale. Small world, eh? We arrived in Costa Rica around noon, made it through immigration and customs, and transfered our money (which we later found out we didn't really need to do very much, but oh well, live and learn). Then we waited outside of the airport for 2 or 3 hours, which was stressful because we wanted to know for sure our shuttle was coming. While we were waiting, a guy that works for the airport told us where to get some food. It was just rice and beans, but damn, they were good. Our driver finally showed up a half hour late and we were on our way. That van took us through small cities in the rain forest. It was stunning, even the poorest villages we saw were colorful and lively. We stopped and ate fried plantains with cheese, and we will now make that a staple in our diet while we stay in Costa Rica. The roads are unlike the ones in the states. They are extremely curvy and bumpy. Our driver must know them by heart by the way he was navigating and driving so quickly. We met another couple just a couple years older than us on that shuttle. They're from D.C. and they seem to be traveling the entire country and staying in hostels. They were very nice and the girl helped translate some things for us. Then we had to take a car carrying ferry across the bay because the reserve and our hotel are on a peninsula. We had to switch drivers at this point, and the new one knew even less English than the first. By the time we got off the ferry it was completely dark, even though it was only about 6:30, and it was pouring rain. These roads were even worse, 1 and a half lanes wide, bumpier than ever, very hilly, and some bridges that would not pass in the States. More people joined the shuttle at this point, and we met a woman who had quit her job, hopped on a plane, and landed in Costa Rica without any plans at all. I thought we were unprepared! She has been everywhere and it was great talking to her. We finally arrived at our hotel at about 8:30, all safe and sound. All of the guests here seem to be volunteering at Rainsong and they all know English. The hotel is not like one you would find in the States, but it is really amazing. The walls are all very colorful, and we have a private room with a bathroom and shower. We have a view of the ocean from our hotel. There is even an air conditioner, but it costs a little more to have on. The temperature was cool last night because it has been raining 3 days straight so we don't need the air conditioner right now. We went to bed at nine because we were so exhausted from traveling. But we finally made it! And it took air, land, and sea to get us here.

Dia 2

We got up around six thirty so we could get ready and walk over to Rainsong with the other volunteers. One of the very nice volunteers, Trina, gave us some oatmeal to make but it took too long so we had to save it for later. The hotel has a communal kitchen, pretty well equipped with everything we need. Our walk to Rainsong is about 1 kilometer I believe. Luckily it's all flat, and it takes about a half hour to walk there. On the way we passed so many beautiful flowers and trees. It's amazing we literally get to walk though the rain forest. There are dogs everywhere in Costa Rica, and they have all been really mild tempered so far. We also saw about 4 different types of butterflies, some interesting birds, and crabs which walk along the road. When we got to Rainsong, it was definitely not exactly what we expected. It's much smaller than the website makes it seem, and Mary, the caretaker who we have been communicating with, was a large white woman in a mumu smoking a cigarette. Immediately we were asked to go help out on the farm they have a little up the road. A man whose name sounds like "people" took us there with one other girl who knows a little more Spanish than us. "People" knew absolutely no English and had to show us how to do everything. We mainly walked around while he showed us what needed to be done on the farm daily. We cut up mangoes, cucumbers, bananas, and papayas for the animals. We got to see something called a capir, which is a rodent like a capybara, but smaller and brown with white spots like deer have. There were large, black birds with red gullets like a turkey and read eyes, called Guans. We also saw a couple other types of birds that we had never seen before, some being friendly and others not. They had a beautiful deer that loved being around people, so we are assuming it has been raised by humans. We met 2 other boys they are staying on the farm for a month that are from Holland. One of them knows quite a bit of English and he ended up showing us how to do a lot of things. It was all mainly making sure all the animals had food and water. When Mary first asked us to go to the farm I thought we would be doing a lot more manual labor, but it was extremely easy. It was a muddy walk back to the main part of the sanctuary, and we had been out in the rain for 4 hours without raincoats or anything. But I couldn't tell if I was wet from the rain or sweat. It is very humid; not the worst we have ever experienced, but that is probably because it has been raining (in a rain forest, go figure!). We finished up our day of volunteering at noon, looked at the animals they have (which we will describe later as we get to work with them), and walked back to our hotel. We stopped at a small grocery store along the way, which I thought was going to be more intimidating, but it was very easy to find what we wanted. We got some basic essentials, like rice, pasta, tortillas, avocados, plantains, cheese, bread, and peanut butter. We are drinking bottled water here because we are in such a remote area, the sanitation probably isn't the best. I almost paid the cashier waaaay too much money because I cannot count zeros, but we were lucky enough that he corrected me and gave it back to us. The people here have all been nice, welcoming, and helpful. So now we are relaxing in our hotel room after our long day of walking (Matthew has fallen asleep next to me) and we will go explore the beach this evening. We miss everyone very much and we still can't stop talking about how lucky we are to have family and friends that support us as much as all of you. We will update this blog every couple of days so we have a record of our time here and so everyone can keep up with us if they chose. Now, I must go brush up on some more Spanish!

Hasta Luego!

Love, Matt and Zoe Knox