Shannon Costello

We are starting to get the fact that every window and door has bars and every house has a high fence.  If you ask the ordinary person, they will tell you it has to do with robbery….and that, I’m sure, is true.  However, the climate is a factor as well.  In this sort of climate (very wet and rather warm) it is convenient to have air flowing through the house, so windows and doors are open all the time.  If one is going to leave everything open, it helps one worry less if there are bars.

We passed a car accident the other day.  Two SUVs had plunged through someone’s gate and stopped just before hitting the house (or perhaps they did see it).  Another reason to have bars…protection from the streets.

Tuesday we went to InBioParque, which is a biological research station that also hosts a zoo.  White-tailed deer here are smaller and have smaller antlers.  The young look like Bambi as a baby…very rounded heads and huge eyes- incredibly cute.  We unfortunately did not see any sloths, though the guide looked high and low (well, mostly high) for them.  I did learn to identify several commen birds.  The sparrow equivalent here is known as a corn-eater….comemaíz.  The zanate is like the crow, though not as big.  Loud and obnoxious…and fun to watch.  We saw a very odd long-legged bird known as a pone-pone.  ´Pone huevos´means ‘it lays eggs.’  The pone-pone lays a LOT of eggs.

Yesterday we went on a canopy tour….zip lines through the rain forest.  The final one was like flying.  There were some interesting metaphors there.  On the final one, when one is suspended horizontally, one has no control at all…like life, though I often think I am in control.  On the high-wire type bridges, I grab frantically for every possible hand-hold, forgetting that I can’t fall because of the cable above me to which I am attached…

Favorite joke-one person asked the guide if the mosquitoes carried malaria.  No, he said, they carry Dengue.  Ha ha ha.