Central America - All creatures great and small

Which one is not a table decoration?  These handsome
iguana are very common in Costa Rica.  This does not detract
from the pleasure of seeing them often

Pretty  (&) Extraordinary

One of the things we love most about Central America is the amazing wildlife we were lucky enough to exerience during our two housesits.  The butterflies were surprisingly beautiful.  This would be a great place to be a lepidopterist!  But for us mere mortals ... it was enough to just enjoy seeing them every day.  Our favourites were the ones in Costa Rica with the vivid blue on the inside of the wings (which made them extremely difficult to photograph) which you might be able to spot on our video.

See if you can spot the blue flashes

Here is a compilation of some we did photograph

Beautiful Birds

Then there were the beautiful birds!  We sat and watched them for hours on end.  Our favourites were the Macaws.  They are very, very noisy and you can here them coming from miles off.  To us, that is part of their charm.

Eating mamons in our tree

The red tanager is quite startling when you see the vibrant red on the wing as it flies by.  We had an identification chart of the birds we were likely to see and it was fun to identify them .... mostly in our vast garden in Costa Rica.

Photos courtesy of google

One of our highlights was to sit back on the day bed and watch the Aracaris right outside our door helping themselves to the ripe papaya.  We willingly sacrificed the papaya for just this reason!

Amazing Animals

Crocodiles are plentiful in the Rio Sierpe in Costa Rica and the locals tell us they are getting more prolific as time goes by.  We saw at least one every time we were out on the boat ... sunbathing on the banks at low tide mostly.  They are quite spooky though and never gave us any cause for concern.

Case in point!

Other cool animals we saw ....

Photos courtesy of google

Creepy Crawlies

We had leaf cutter ants in the yard in Panama.  Whilst amusing to watch they were decimating the orange tree and simply had to go.

The ants encountered in Costa Rica were not nearly as innocuous.  The fire ants drove us crazy if we tried to do the yard work without wearing boots.  The house ants weren't much better, but at least they don't bite!

Pretty crickets in CR

Spiders weren't too much of a problem.  Although Clare encountered a Wandering spider on the shower curtain in Panama and refused to pull the curtain for a week afterwards.

You can see why though ... can't you !?!?!?

David Attenborough of Central America - tarantula in the forest

Amphibians and Reptiles

We only saw three snakes in the six months we were in Central America.  A big daddy boa sleeping in the rafters of an out house.  A snake swimming it's way across the Rio Sierpe and a very cute vine snake as we were traipsing through some bushes on the beach in Panama.  Suffice to say, we weren't sorry not to see more.  Especially the dreaded fer de lance of Costa Rica.  James did point out that there are only 500ish snake bites each year in Costa Rica!!

Vine snake

The most annoying are the cretinous cane toads we encountered in Panama.  No redeeming features and we had to strongly discourage them from taking up residence on the deck.

Scram you filthy vermon

In stark contrast are the wonderful geckos (chit chats as we like to call them), that chirp in the rafters catching bugs.  They really are very cute.

Jesus Christ lizards are fascinating creatures and living on the river in Sierpe we saw many - large and small.  You hear them before you see them as they take off across the water when they hear you coming.  We even had a baby 'pet' one on our deck which we watched hunting bugs every day.  It grew quite a lot during our time but we never saw it attempt to walk on water.  It just seemed happy in the relative comfort and safety of the home it had made in the shade sail.

We were also quite taken with the tree frogs.  Here is one we brushed off the outside wall of the house by accident whilst cleaning once day.  You don't usually see them during the day.

We had land crabs in our garden in Costa Rica

And plenty of sea crabs at Playa Las Lajas, Panama

But the piece de resistance of this group would have to be the iguanas.  They are so much fun and not too spooky. The one in the lead picture just appeared on the deck one day we were visiting friends in Sierpe and stayed around for ages whilst we all took photos.

This big guy would come out on the lawn to feed
when the grass was long enough.  He lived in the
big tree right beside that water tower in the pic

Things that go bite in the night!

Mossies, no-see-ums [what is a noseeum?] and other bitey things .... they are all out and about as night falls.  We were pleasantly surprised that we didn't get bitten more but were careful to shut the screens and windows before turning on lights.  James got bitten by something unseen and the wound took many weeks to heal completely.  In fact, it came back twice after it looked to have cleared up.  Clare went through a spate of getting bitten, again by thing/s unseen.  The bites were painful initially and then sooooo itchy for about a week.  Hey ho, could be worse.  Could have been bitten by a snake!

And so it was .... we woke to the howler monkeys every morning in Costa Rica and went to sleep each night to the howl of the coyotees in Panama - neither of which we were lucky enough to see.

Shrimp Fishing on the Rio Sierpe

Pura Vida in Costa Rica, July - September 2017

It came time to move on to our next house sit in Costa Rica.  There were to be no animals to look after at this one and we knew we would miss the fur babies we were leaving behind.  However, all was not to be lost.  We were to going to be staying in a house about 10 mins from the town of Sierpe, up the Sierpe River with only a boat as transport.  We were really excited about this unique opportunity to "get away from it all" ... and we were not disappointed.

Coco's boat landing

We had visited the house already on our way down to Panama and knew what to expect.  But the reality of living here for a while has surpassed all our expectations.  The two bed/two bathroom house is set on a wonderful acre of trees - many fruiting and lawn with a path down to the boat ramp.  The house is really comfortable and pretty with all mod cons including hot running water which we rarely used and we are on the town water supply (which has only cut off once so far!).  We set up the double lounger in front of the double doors and watch the bird and wildlife all day.  Bliss!

Our vista from the lounger

There is a road you can drive in but apparently it is not very good and we didn't intend to use it at all.  The boat was more than convenient.  Definitely more fun. 

The yard work is also our responsibility while here.   Upon arrival we quickly decided to take advantage of the local lawn man, Jorge, to come by once a month and cut the vast lawn for us.  It is approximately 14 hours work in all and we decided for $50 a pop, life is too short and the weather too hot!  However, there was plenty more to do.  Most mornings we rise around 6am to get a couple of hours work in before it got too hot to be outside .... around 8am!  There was a lot of trimming, leaf scooping and collection of debris onto the burn piles.

Burn off after a clean up

We really enjoy the exercise and the treats to look forward to upon completion of our daily task made it well worth the effort .... a cold shower and a fresh fruit smoothie.

Mamon chino (rambutan), guava and coconut
water ... all from our lovely garden

Sierpe is a sleepy little riverside town where tourists only really venture to gain access to the popular Drakes Bay resort.  The few local shops have most things you need to live, but everything is cheaper, with a wider variety, in Palmar Norte.  Palmar is on the Pan American Highway, with no redeeming features as far as a tourist would be concerned, but for us there are a couple of supermarkets and an amazing fruit and veg store.  The butchers are all very good too.

The sleepy town of Sierpe in the distance

Our fortnightly grocery runs to Palmar Norte start with an 8.30 am boat ride to town, catch the 9am bus (approx a half hour ride depending on how many pickups and drop offs) .... shop till we drop .... catch the 11.30 bus back to Sierpe, boat ride home arriving around 12.30pm.  We usually take a load of mamon chinos (and anything else that is ripe) for a few people in Sierpe.  Day to day living expenses are much greater in Costa Rica than Panama.  As an example, to fill a gas bottle in Panama was around US$5 but in Costa Rica this grew to US$16 for the same size bottle!  As mentioned previously, much is subsidised by the government in Panama due to the  revenue made from the Canal.  However, food choices are greater here in Costa Rica, easier to source and better quality.

Chicken bus to Palmar