Choose Your Own Adventure (Title) – July 21-25

This post has had a few titles as we’ve thought about it over this week:

• “Ricketts of the Caribbean”
• “Animal Planet & Discovery Channel”
• “Why God Created Rubber Boots”

You can choose which title you think best fits our adventures this week!

We spent Monday-Friday in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca on CR’s southern Caribbean coast. According to our guidebook, Christopher Columbus landed there and gave Costa Rica its name (“Rich Coast”) because the natives greeted him wearing gold. It’s a funky small Afro-Caribbean beach town. Throughout the week we continually had to adjust expectations and attitudes (working on living out pura vida) but we agree this has been our best excursion yet.

The Jungle: We stayed at La Ceiba, the jungle eco-house of the Jaguar Rescue Center. JRC rescues and rehabilitates animals with hopes to return them to the wild. Their rescue center is in town and open to the public twice a day; their “release” area is in the jungle and the house in which we stayed is on that property.

Despite the seven-minute walk uphill carrying luggage from car park to jungle house, the house itself was fantastic and the view unbeatable. And then a true gift from God: our host, Greivan, is a herpetologist! Within minutes of meeting he recognized Corban’s passion for reptiles (and then animals in general); he had stories to tell of both caution and commitment. We overheard several conversations between them in which Greivan encouraged Corban’s God-given heart for animals – “Read, study, how do you know…? good, that’s right, keep going…” Greivan took us on two evening/night walks around the La Ceiba property, during which we saw a recently-reintroduced sloth, an eyelash pit viper (venomous), red eye tree frogs, hourglass frogs, a sleeping hummingbird, and a basilisk (commonly known as the Jesus Christ lizard because they “walk” on water).

The red eye tree frog wanted a closer look at Corban

Quinn fell in love with a kinkajou JRC hopes to return to the wild. Howler monkeys woke us up to say goodbye on our last morning. In between we toured the rescue center in town. Such good work being done by biologists and volunteers who love God’s creatures. We’re big fans!

She might look scary, but she was delightful

Quinn, Greivan and Kinkajou

Dave and his new buddy, an aracari toucan

Oh, and the constantly-following-us rains made for lots of mud. Greivan and his wife wore big rubber boots, an obvious choice in that environment. We made do with Keens and tennis shoes, slip-sliding away…

Discovery Channel: We left our lovely jungle house for a day-excursion with an indigenous people-group, the BriBri. The directions were typical CR, no exact directions, “just past this town, then a little farther…” We thought we’d planned more than adequate time but had no idea we’d drive so many kilometers down an unpaved road, fording three streams and getting impossibly stuck in a ditch.

Uh oh…

Dave ran for help while Siv and the boys prayed; Dave came back with several men, one on horseback, and five dogs because that’s how things roll in CR. Proof that God works miracles: just as they arrived another man drove up in a brand-new car, just “happened” to have a tow-strap in his car, and knew how to tie it to both cars to pull us out. After rescuing us, our “angel” turned around and drove off – and this is not a well-traveled road…

Thank God for answered prayers

Twenty-four BriBri communities live 1.5hrs upriver via motorized dug-out canoe (rain streamed down for most of our ride…); there are no roads, only boats and hiking trails. The mud was thick. Our guide, Prudencio, apologized as he looked first at his rubber boots, and then at our shoes. Sigh.

The Yorkin community of BriBri people

Oh, and Prudencio only spoke Spanish, and it was just the six of us, including his 5yo son, Leandro. They walked us around town, telling us about the BriBri, through the worst mud ever – Siv almost lost one and then the other shoe, and then her patience, in shin-deep mud – to a river where we could wash off before returning through the same mud to a delicious lunch followed by a chocolate-production presentation. Prudencio topped it off by showing us how they make thatched roofs (they last at least six years, and up to fifteen if the rains aren’t too heavy!) and how they hunt/fish with bow and arrow (much harder than it looked).

Corban and Leandro

Quinn grinding chocolate

The Yorkin River is the boundary between CR and Panama – we “touched down” for a quick pic at a waterfall in Panama

The Beach: We rented a house near the beach for two nights. We missed our jungle house and this house had glaring deficiencies… Still, as we sat on an outdoor patio eating dinner while a rain storm pelted outside, the kids initiated a conversation about our favorite trip memories so far. Hallelujah, they are beginning to recognize that the extended time is in truth a gift! As Corban put it, “We’ve all been pushed so far out of our comfort zones, and it’s good for all of us.”

The next day we played at the beach – not good for walking (too little beach), for surfing, body surfing or boogie boarding, so we swam, jumped in waves, made up games, buried each other… played! And then we enjoyed a delicious meal out together, a treat as we’ve home-cooked most of our meals in CR.

More Animals: Dave discovered both two- and three-toed sloths in the trees surrounding the beach house, hanging out, eating leaves, chilling like sloths do. On the way back to our home base in Escazu we stopped at the Sloth Sanctuary, a one-of-a-kind place in the world dedicating to protecting, rehabilitating, and researching sloths. Before we left Moraga we found a library book about this place, and the kids had seen it on an episode of Animal Planet’s Too Cute (Google “Too Cute + sloth”). It was interesting to see up close and in person.

Dave caught a sloth yawn – this is at the beach house property

With Buttercup, the sloth who “started” the Sanctuary

“Home” again, we read these words tonight in Jesus Calling for Kids:

“Do you hear Me? I am calling to you all the time…. This world is alive with My Presence. I am there in the beauty of My creation and the songs of birds.” We feel like we have a front-row seat to hear God in the beauty of His creation!