It´s later. Just before I left the hotel this morning I had an argument
with Iris about second hand smoke in the hotel. She is herself a smoker
and didn´t take kindly to the information that I lost my mother to lung
cancer etc. So, when I left, I went looking for another hotel, called Hemingway
Inn, much nicer than La Cuesta for 35 bucks a night. I don´t know yet,
because La Cuesta has cooking facilities, and I prefer to prepare my own
food while in Costa Rica, since the restaurants here aren't vegetarian
friendly, except for a chain of vegetarian restaurants called Vishnu and
the food there is okay on occasion but a steady diet I don´t think so. What
I might do instead, is tough it out here for a few more days then spend ten
days or so in Monteverde where I can hang out with howler monkeys and
toucans in the cloud forest, then spend my last night or two back at La
Cuesta before I return home. I could do this because I have rented my
room for the whole month and it wouldn´t be a great financial loss, since I´m
paying $356 for the whole four weeks I´m here. Plus, lodgings in
Monteverde are cheap and plentiful. I also hope that this way I can keep a good
relationship going with Iris and Alvaro who, in spite of differences, and
my annoyance that they had falsely advertized the amenities of their hotel,
are very dear people.
I went to Zoo Ave, or Bird Zoo in La Garita today, which is a
semi-rural community of lovely homes and restaurants and plant nurseries outside Alajuela. It´s lushly planted throughout with tropical everything, and
they have over one hundred species of birds native to Costa Rica. These are birds that have been found sick or injured. They nurse them back to
health and release them again in the wild. They also have mammals, such as an ocelot, a puma, an indigenous deer, peccaries (a native wild pig), tapirs, and many different kinds of monkeys. Also there are several peacocks roaming free. They also have a number of birds from other countries, such as Africa, ostriches, and from Southeast Asia, such as fairy
bluebirds.
Asian Fairy Bluebird
I´m baffled as to how they came across birds from other countries.
Perhaps some of them got lost and were swept out in a storm over the Atlantic and foundered on the shores of Costa Rica. But ostriches can´t flie. Maybe they were let into the country on a work permit and overstayed.
They also featured some other birds I particularly love, among them the
>
Resplendant Quetzal,
and the scarlet thighed dacnis
There was also a siver pheasant
Silver Pheasant
being given a back massage by a white fan tail pigeon. I kid you not, the
pigeon was preening the pheasant with its beak and the pheasant just lay
there with his eyes closed soaking it up. It was wonderful being there. I
must have spent nearly four hours just wandering the paths, looking at
birds surrounded by tropical foliage. I lost my umbrella, and the girl at the
concession stand said she saw a middle aged woman take it and pointed the
direction she went in. I eventually found her and shouted, ¨mi
paraguas¨ or my umbrella, which she dutifully returned to me. I thanked her for
taking care of it for me. This is also a case in point by the way of how you can´t really trust people in this country, or so I´m learning.
On the other hand, on the bus going out to Alajuela and back again there
was a man standing near the front playing his guitar and singing for all of
us. It was only when he walked around to collect donations that I realized
that he is blind. Almost everyone gave him something, and when he nearly
passed me and didn´t seem to hear me say, momentito, momentito, while digging
for change, the young woman seated next to me detained him for me. I thanked
her afterwards. I was touched by the care everyone was expressing toward him.
This is my second time at Zoo Ave. I was first there in 1994, when it was
a much smaller operation. It is far more beautiful now and I would like to
go back.
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