Two Canadians discover animals, animals, animals
Post-wildfire, Monday, March 11
Bright sun flooded us out of Dreamworld, sweat instantly soaking through the cocoon of blankets we’d wrapped ourselves in before the air conditioner kicked out. We’d managed a sleep in until 6:40.
“Good news!” yawned Mark. “We survived!”
“I’m not sure the lawn chairs did,” I responded as I fought my way out of the swaddle of bedclothes.
Through the windowed wall, we could see the leftovers of the fire-feeding windstorm. One of the foldable deck chairs stubbornly stuck its oatmeal-tinged spine out of the leaf-riddled pool. We could also see the curl of a cat’s tail as it dashed off towards the outdoor kitchen. The back end of our newest friend.
Yesterday the smell of Costa Rican bratwurst lured her from under the deck. Obviously nursing kittens, her teats dangled and danced from below her scrawny frame as she happily devoured all that we gave her. Jumping onto the island countertop she’d even attempted to help herself to our homemade charcuterie board.
This morning, she was frisky. The outdoor couch threatened to devour us and yet Sparky Joan managed to find the few limbs that poked forth. She flitted around and around Mark’s calves, batting at his bare ankles, and eventually, she dug her claws and teeth playfully into his flesh.
“Stop that!” he commanded. She did. Purring, she snaked herself around his foot.
He might have been slightly angry had it not been for the Café Volio swimming across our tongues. Nothing can go wrong when coffee—sweet, nutty Arabica coffee—is involved, can it? We couldn’t help it: slight moans of pleasure echoed off the tiled floor as we sipped some of the best coffee we’d ever tasted.
“What would you name her?” I asked. Between swigs of heavenly java, we fed ourselves—and the cat—hard-boiled eggs. “The kids and I always name creatures we find on vacation.”
“How about Sparky?” Mark asked, tossing a bit of banana towards her. “After the fire?”
“I was thinking Joan…as in Joan Jett…as in jet black. What about calling her Sparky Joan?”
I’m not sure Mark’s grunt exhibited approval—even with my impressive musical reference. But Sparky Joan stuck. Throughout the week SJ was a regular visitor during mealtimes. Then she extended her social calls to random moments between dawn and dusk. Within a couple of days, when we were home, she was curled up within inches of our toes. She was living her best life: supervising us with a lethargic gaze, dozing, and occasionally interrupting our reading with high-pitched pleas for almond milk or scraps.
There is no shortage of creatures in Costa Rica. It is the most biodiverse country [1] in the world with over 500,000 creatures, 900 of which are birds.
Monkey howls, sounding more like the bark of a dog who’d just stuck their paw in a motorbike’s tailpipe, accompanied our early morning coffee ritual. Dragonflies zipped around our elbows, playing tag with their electric blue pals as we scanned the horizon between book chapters. Horned beetles, fat flies, nimble geckos, and even a scorpion joined us one day while we sipped white wine on the porch, trying to chill our innards to less than the 35-degree midday temperature.
White-throated magpie jays flitted from branch to branch, a plume of black feathers jutting above their heads and making them appear equally regal and foolish. Their squawks, sounding much like their Canadian blue jay cousins, were loud and somewhat obnoxious as we wandered beachside trails through the Diamante Eco Park.
The snakes we saw were all thankfully in the airy “cages” at the animal sanctuary. I don’t say thankfully because I’m terrified of serpents. I’m not. They don’t freak me out—as Mark discovered on one of our first dates when he enthusiastically pointed at one crisscrossing the cemetery trail. He later admitted disappointment in my lackadaisical response.
I was grateful because, as one of the park guides shared, several of the 137 snake varieties in Costa Rica are venomous.
“Last year there were 5762 phone calls to the fire department regarding snakes,” the man, sweating through his azure-toned work shirt, informed us [2]. “Seven hundred bites. But only one or two die. That’s about the same number of people who die per capita in the US from lawnmower accidents [3]. So not bad, right?”*
Not bad, I guess?
The fascinating chatterbox guide gave us all sorts of helpful hints and info: vertical eye slits mean venomous (not that I want to be close enough to tell which way the pupil is angled); the fer-de-lance’s bite can cause hemorrhaging and necrosis so you may not die but could lose a limb [4]; and green vipers, who only descend trees when they need water, move fast enough to catch hummingbirds.
Animals, animals, animals.
In small restaurant cafes called “sodas”, chili pepper and ginger drifted from family recipes being stirred and tossed in a cooking area barely big enough for two people. Mangey dogs were part of the landscape. Always curiously approaching us they eagerly accepted Casado scraps.
On walks and drives out the rutted, orange dirt road from our rental, families of Howler monkeys launched themselves through the trees. Lumbering across the Playa del Coco sidewalk was an iguana as long as a bicycle.
Animals, animals, animals everywhere.
On our last day, Sparky Joan gave us a gift.
Gathering our suitcases near the stairs, we were preparing to wave goodbye to the home we had made our own for a week.
“Do you hear that mewing sound?” asked Mark as he tucked sandals into his backpack.
At the base of the stairs, near the gateway exit, was a pile of wriggling fur.
“She brought her babies to meet us!” I excitedly went to where Sparky Joan was nursing a charcoal baby while other kittens treated her like their own personal jungle gym. Eyes alert but slightly rolled back, she let us tickle and touch them all. With one final pet to her temple, we wished her both au revoir and adieu.
“Thank you, Sparky Joan. Thank you.”
Sources: 1, 2, 3 * per capita – there are 75-90 Americans killed every year due to lawn mower accidents, 4