Little Trip To The Beach

I had a little trip to the beach with the family and a daughter of a niece as the girl is almost the same age as My little Tinker. The weather was perfect and the hotel was Ok but expensive as they charged for the kids. but just for a couple fo nights it was OK. The sea was warm and the kids were in the pool non stop, we all got burned a little and we ate very little so we felt great. the drive was Ok but we had to pass the wreck of a cement truck that had runaway down one of the very steep hills and crushed a car with 3 people in it killing all, the car was squashed flat. it looked a really ugly mess, this is my only fear about driving in Costa RIca, that we will get killed by some other hopeless drunk driver or runaway truck.

Here are the two little girls on the beach having a great time




The Cheeky Little Rufous-naped Wren, many of these in the roadside trees and shrubs




The very large Iguana that was sat on the top of the Barbecue Chimney

Wilson Botanical Gardens Southern Costa Rica

We had left our silly little dog with my in-laws over Christmas while i was freezing my ass off in the USA, so after the tripw e had to pick him up again but it is a 6 hour drive and we have to stay overnight in a sweltering little tin roof house so to make the trip worth doing we decided to do the trip to a local birding place and nice garden, it involves a 1 hour drive directly up the mountains, the road was so bad about 3 years ago we didn't bother and turned around, so we didn't know what to expect, but once again the President of Costa Rica has been an amazing champion, the roads were all fixed and we still being fixed as we drove up these perfect roads. We arrived at the gardens to find them basically deserted, the tourists from the USA are all broke and are staying away. So as we had taken the in-laws they were told to sit in some nice shady seats and wait for us to do the tour, we got our map and went for a walk but we suddenly found the place had shrunk over the last 6 years since we last went there. Funny how memory plays tricks on you, the place was only a quarter as it seemed we were marching around the place in no time at all and the birds were very scarce, i love ornamental gardens and this place really does have some wonderful specimens, this place was Mr & Mrs Wilson's garden about 20 years ago when the last one alive died, this area of the south was strip felled of all trees in the 1950's, terrible destruction so they had the chance to make this place into a garden. They have done a nice thing but for me virgin rain forest is far more interesting, we went for a miserable lunch that was very expensive, so we stole some bananas and fed them to the waiting birds out the back, the birds were stunning and all new species for me so I was pretty excited. The problem with most of the tourist attractions is they are dealing with tropical novices and offer little in return, Wilsons Botanical gardens are supposedly a pinnacle for Costa Rica, but i was a little disappointed with what i was getting. I think i am spoiled with doing so much, I really did like the gardens but it was somewhat lacking for me. I wouldn't have liked to have driven all the way down here just to see them as I could have been pissed off, but being in the area it was OK if not a little bloody expesive. Rating garden 6/10 food 3/10 birds 9/10

Giant Tree Fern, The Biggest I have Ever Seen




The Tallest Bamboo I have Ever Seen, 25 Meters Tall




Spangled Tanager




Silver Eared Tanager




Buff-Throated Saltator




Golden-headed Tanager

Turubari Forest Canopy Park

We went as a full family to a Forest canopy tour, I was expecting the world for the $40 entrance fee as this is incredibly expensive for Costa Rica. This included the cable canopy rides for the kids, I dont bother with rides as I am a miserable old fart already and only go for the scenery and wildlife as it was meant to have some wildlife attractions. It took about 90 minutes driving which is a long way for here along crazy hairpin roads. We ended up in a really remote area and turned into a fancy entrance and were met at the reception like visiting presidents, not surprising the amount of money we were spending, we actually had a private guide to take us around the park, which was OK but she was boring and knew nothing about the birds, we found not forest but forested gardens, totally different, it was a glorified garden, a little disappointing but not unexpected, this country was stripped of its trees maybe 100 years ago for cattle ranches and only in the last 30 years when farming went bust have the trees come back. The animals they spoke of were in miserable cages, they had a iguana breeding cage with far too many iguanas in it, like 50 in a compound for 5, it looked bad and i felt bad for the Igaunas, we then found the crocodiles, they were better but in pretty useless compound to view and probably useless for breeding at least the iguanas were in a breeding program. The bird life was better, they had a few large trees that were the food tree for scarlet Macaws, so they had several of these rare birds there, amazing to look at but that was about it apart from a tame pet Toucan.
The canopy cable rides the kids loved it maybe for them the trip was OK but for me it was a total rip off, This park is designed for foreign tourists who have never been in a rain forest or any type of jungle, this is aimed at American tourists who come down on the cruise ships and want to see the "Jungle"

Addendum
There was a Butterfly house which did have some beautiful specimens in it but there were only 4 or 5 species, which is not what you want out of a butterfly house, pretty miserable really, the place was huge so could have had many many more species, just a cheapo exhibit not what you expect for $40 each

Monarch





The Little Tinker getting ready for the Canopy Ride





The Little Tinker Almost Crying on the first ride but she really enjoyed it




The Tame Toucan, fantastically beautiful, very unusual




The Very Rare Scarlet Macaw





The Beautiful amazing Violacious Trogon, what a name

My Little Girls British Citizenship application

well now my little girl has my name she is now entitled to British Citizenship, but the paperwork is almost as bad as the adoption process, we are now running around San Jose getting things certificated like birth certificates and adoption paperwork, one huge problem is the application form from the British Government, it doesn't cover my spcific case and doesn't have a space for me to put my name, we went to the Consulate and as I am now on first name terms with the Vice Consul we discussed the problem, she just told me to write a letter detailing my situation and even adding my details to the form in the space provided for the Biological father, i am not sure of defacing the form but she seemed pretty confident about it. Now it is just a matter of getting the Teacher to write a reference but she is is Germany for training, 3 weeks to wait, and getting all the docs ready,, maybe at the end of the week, my wife will probably end up submitting the paperwork as i will be working in some miserable place in the planet, lets hope is isn't winter time, I have seen enough snow to last me 20 years, Pennsylvania is nice but not in winter.

Earthquake Update

Costa Rica was built by two tectonic zones riding over one another, this means the forces that built this country are still active, we normally get a tremor or a wobble once a week or so, nothing much, enough to make the wind chime ching away now and again, we arrived back in Costa Rica a week ago and after recovering from the trip from the USA we went south to my in-laws house, we had felt a wobble the night before and ignored it while we watched tv, when we got to Cuidad Neilly we saw the news and the helicopter pictures showed miles and miles of collapsed roads and many building that had slid down the huge ravines, huge mountain sides had slid away, usually because the trees have been removed. It all looked very bad but the death toll is reasonably small as it is a low populated area, it is standing at about 100 with a few foreigners including 5 brits, probably birdwatchers. what has made this worse is that many roads just fell away into the valleys and rivers, taking cars and tourist buses with them, so now the rescue cannot get access apart from helicopter. The operators must be making big money now. So we carry on as normal and watch the news and this time for me the disaster is local not in some far off land.

Finally Thawed Out from the Freezing Weather

I have been back 3 days and I have finally gotten the cold out of my bones, We went to the outback of Deep Pennsylvania, it was a very pretty place, too many people of course, and the weather was perfect for the little girl. She had set her sights on snow and unseasonaly it was delivered on time, we were told it never really snows until Jan of Feb, but we got it late December. The little girls were playing out in it for two hours until the little girl looked at me with a pained expression and said "my hands are hurting and cold", she had never realised that snow was very cold, it is out of her experience, she never went in the snow to play again, i thing she had her full life's worth of snow, it was just friggin cold all the time, only 17 F one day, that isn't funny.

Snow time In Pennsylvania



Great Wolf Resort, A swimming resort in the snowy depths of winter, they are mad




We barely went out, only to go shopping in Walmart, we actually went shopping in Walmart about 6 times, I love walmart, every time you go shopping there is something else to see and buy. I bought tons of things, mostly electronic things, but some things for the little girl like nice clothes which are not available in Costa Rica, Walmart was heaven sent, he must have been Jesus in disguise. We had a nice christmas and had a few latin folks around for New Years Eve, we all drank a few beers and but it was really just too cold to do much else and the threat of more snow which it did do a few times stopped me from renting a car while i was there, we went to a local casino for a christmas beer, it was a huge impressive place and was full of crazy old ladies throwing money into these machines, also lots of older men, it was a sad sight to see all these lonely people with nothing better to do than sit in front of a machine that was taking there money, sounds a bit like me in front of the PC. We also went to a holiday resort, it seemed a bit strange to go to an indoor resort with a giant swimming pool with wave machine and lots of water slides, we were all dressed up in winter gear and looking at folks in swimming costumes through the viewing window, so we went to dunkin donuts to pig out on a big box of cream filled donuts, more healthy than swimming any day.



On our last day we went to the New Jersey Science Museum for Children, it was an entertaining place and we got a 3D film included, i think it is the first time i did the 3D film and it was a very interesting experience, the images really did look they were coming out of the screen, It was OK but not really worth the long drive and expensive entrance fee, I really wanted to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art but the kids would have hated it. Now I am back home and I can say it was a great trip but i really don't like the cold weather, and here in Costa Rica the sun is shining and the air is warm and i don't have to wear anything warm at all. So next year it is going to be a warm place for the christmas break, maybe Madagascar

Science Museum



New York