Sunday, 23 December
Got up and had breakfast. Romy gives you fruit, granola, eggs and toast and it was all great. Ralf and I then decided to go to the frog exhibit that we can see from our windows. The exhibit was alright but since we were there during the day, the frogs were all sleeping. Luckily, they said that we could come back tonight using our ticket so we could see the frogs in action. Well, not lucky for Ralf since he is living, but lucky for me. Overall, we saw about 2-3 frogs in each aquarium. I was disappointed that my camera could not focus on the frogs when I tried to zoom in, so no pictures of frogs. Overall there was about 15-20 aquariums and the guide gave us a pretty good description of each one like how many eggs they have, where they lay their eggs, how much typically survive (usually about 2%), that the tadpoles will sometimes eat each other and that even the mom will eat the tadpoles for food. Also, we learned that the poison dart frogs are named ‘dart’ because they jump in a darting style, not because they were used for poison on darts. This is what I thought the name meant. It is the poison arrow frogs that are toxic (can create a heart attack in about 6 seconds) that you need to avoid and apparently they are only in Columbia.
Afterwards, we headed back for Ralf had to pack and catch the bus at 2:30 to go to San Jose. We got lunch and I had fried chicken. I can’t even remember the last time that I had fried chicken. The meal also came with a coke. Again, I can’t remember the last time I had a coke. I only drank half for I knew that the caffeine could do some damage to me and I did not want to get a migraine.
It turns out the Romy is a big football fan and has the Sunday Ticket package. So I hung around the hostel and watched football for the first time in 4 weeks. Romy is a big Patriots fan so when the game came on he told his wife his Patriots were on and that he had to watch. Of course, she didn’t care and gave him their newborn. I got bored of just sitting their and watching so I grabbed my playing cards and sat at the table. Romy’s two oldest daughters saw this and came over wanting to play. There was an uno deck next to me so I suggested that we play this. It took me a few hands to realize that they are not playing the uno that I grew up with. It was more like rummy, but you can only create runs. I am still not sure how exactly the game is played but I think it would have been a lot easier to play the uno that I know. After that, we played rummy, which was similar to the uno game, but not the rummy I know. We also played a round of concentration which takes a while when you use all 52 cards.
I took a shower and was glad that there was hot water. I was already cold and do not know if I would have been able to do to a freezing cold shower. I then went back to the frog pond and again was a little disappointed. Most of the frogs were still sitting in the same spot and not moving around. It was dark so we had to use flashlights to see into the tanks. This made me feel like an uncaring human being for the frogs are already in captivity and now I am shining a flashlight into their home so I can see what they are doing. I eventually left without looking in all of the tanks for it was just bugging me seeing all of the flashlights being used. The one cool part about being there at night was hearing the different frog sounds. There were several times when I would just sit in the dark and listen. In the lobby I was looking at the gifts and finally found a bracelet that I wanted. I knew I had to have it when I saw ‘om’ in the Tibetan script on the medallion. It would just be nice if my wrists weren’t so damn small.
I then went to the grocery store to do some shopping. I figured that since I am going to be at the hostel for some time I should buy food instead of going out every day. There is a fridge that we can store food in at the hostel and we can use the kitchen to make the food, so why not? I went with the diet of champions, pb & j with apples and crackers. I came home and made my dinner and read a little more in my ‘the tao of inner peace’ book that I brought with me. FWIW – this is where I first read about wu-chi. Or at least this is where I thought I read about it for I have not come across it yet. After dinner I told Romy that I wanted to go to the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve tomorrow do to some hiking. He said the pick is at 6:30 or 8:30 so I choose the 8:30 time. Someone put James Bonds Casino Royale on so I ended up watching the end of the movie – it was nice to watch a movie again. I then went to bed and read. I have the dorm room to myself tonight so that is nice. I need to talk to Romy tomorrow about extended my stay here.