Dinner, connections, and beautiful birds

Sarah: We sure have had a couple of exciting days around here! Yesterday afternoon we spent putting things away and cleaning up some of our projects because Efrain and his wife, Caridad, and their daughter Maria Elena were going to come over for dinner. So, I have to admit I was a little stressed out with the idea of them coming to eat with us because I knew that the entire conversation would have to be in Spanish, and we would be entertaining them. But, out of respect we wanted to have Efrain over first before we invited any of his kids and their families over. So they arrived at 6:30 on the dot, and even brought me flowers! The whole evening was a success. We chatted for a bit while I was finishing putting everything on the table, and then sat down for a nice dinner. There were only a few times that the silence was long enough for David and I to rack our brains, trying to come up with another question, but overall it was great to have them here. After dinner we showed them some of the changes and progress we’ve made, and explained our vision for the museum, which we know is important to the community. They were very complimentary toward everything here. We feel like this was a big step in reaching out to the community and making more personal connections with the Chacones.

Today was another great day. We finally took advantage of having a car, and took off this morning to visit another biological research station nearby. We first drove to the top of Cerro de la Muerte (Mountain of Death), and put David’s driving skills and the 4WD car to the test. Both passed, but we did get quite the ride out of it—the “road” isn’t the easiest to drive on! At the top of Cerro de la Muerte there is a point where on a clear day you can actually see both the Caribbean and Pacific coasts. Today, however, we were engulfed by clouds. It was still beautiful—a completely different ecosystem. Soon we plan on starting at the top and hiking down, which ends up connecting to one of our trails here in the valley.

We reached the Cerro de la Muerte research station and met the owner, Fredrico. He showed us around their small facility—very rustic and only for the hardcore biologists. It was so cold there even midday! Fredrico actually lives in San Jose (I don’t blame him) and they don’t have groups during this time of year (I don’t blame them, either). However, their property is beautiful and they get a variety of animals—he’s even seen a puma and plenty of tapirs, plus some other mammals that I’d never heard of! Fredrico even told a story that he was hiking on his trails and a tapir was in the way so he hit it on the butt to move so he could continue hiking. David and I decided we definitely want to do some hiking there in the future!

Here are some neat things about Fredrico that show what a small world this is—he has a son who lives in Polk City, Iowa and attended Iowa State University, so he’s been to Des Moines many times. This son was just offered a job through Pioneer, the company David worked at when he lived in Iowa before we were married. Fredrico also has a brother who lived in San Jose, California, for about 50 years—so he’s very familiar with the Santa Cruz area, where we lived and worked the last two years. And to make things even better, when he found out David was from Washington, Fredrico found more common ground with David by voicing his interest in Sasquatch. They proceeded to discuss folklore, stories, and tales of sightings of Sasquatch, the Chupacabra, and the Viejo del Monte. It was great to meet him and we look forward to pursuing that relationship in the future.

After we left that research station, we headed down the road to another biological station that used to be owned by Fredrico until he sold it to new owners. We briefly met with Carlos, one of the owners, who gave us a tour and explained how their field station operates. He actually lives there, and on their land they have both a farm that they live off of, and also a lot of land that they work to conserve. Their property is very simple and a bit rustic as well, but very comfortable and we really enjoyed it.

Finally, as we headed down into our own valley, we stopped at a place that has piqued our interest before. We have noticed this small restaurant that often has tourist vans parked in front with lots of people stopping by. So we stopped and met the couple that lives there, and they serve typical Costa Rican food, which attracts lots of tourists. But one of the main attractions is the fact that they have an aguacatillo tree right behind their house that many quetzals feed off of. The tree has already begun to fruit, which none of ours have farther down in the valley. So, we saw a couple quetzals super close! I was thrilled. We also saw some toucanets, another beautiful bird. This couple lays out food for the birds and they know all kinds of different whistling calls, and many birds come and eat and hang out around their property. It was great to meet them and make that connection, so in the future we can stop by and hopefully see more quetzals up close and personal!