In the last three days, so much as happened. Death, illness and a lot of pondering. The moment I left the room from my Skype interview, I wondered what would happen if I didn't get the job. I hadn't applied to a lot of jobs- for that matter only two. As a tour guide I didn't truly make enough for a living down here and therefore, I would rely on generous tips from tourists for dinner and for housing. So far, my bank account was looking good, but if I chose to live down here for five months next year, how would I survive?
I looked into travel blogs, those are the people who spend 5 years abroad, and make money appear out of thin air. Well, I noticed their pattern. They taught abroad, or they worked on a cruise ship. They tended to find places to work that didn't require a career, but merely a job. This was the defining point in my life, did I want a career, or a job? I am still young and have time to figure it out. The need to have my future planned out comes purely from my anxiety, and the desire to be financially secure. This adventure has taught me that, after all, job security is merely just something people dream off. I have met tons of travelers down here who lost their job, sold their business, and decided to come for their mid-interview travels. So who really knows where the world is taking me. Not me that's for sure.
I have talked about death and illness in my paragraph above. Unfortunately, LB (Little baby squirrel) died today while I was giving a tour. Encar found it under the blanket having issues breathing. Between my two tours, I sat with her and hope she could understand my gentle words. I had to leave to take a group around, and was hoping that she would still be alive when I came back. I am not sure if an hour would have made the difference as she was having real problems breathing and was struggling to keep her eyes open. An hour or two would have made no difference in her battle with life or death, but in my mind, the sound of my voice would help her survive.
While we are on the train of bad news, we have two two-toed sloths that are struggling with diseases. Dante has scabies, and is extremely contagious to everyone. Anytime I hold him to feed him, I feel like a thousand little mites are crawling on me.
While Dante is struggling with itchy skin, Tyson is struggling with a little sneeze. I sit by her side, and try to make sure her breathing is regular, and her sneezing goes down. Tyson is named after the infamous Mike Tyson, because she bites anything that she can put in her little mouth. We found out a little too late that Mike Tyson was a lady sloth, and the name had to stick as she is now known as "The biter".
The other bad news is for our tiniest baby three-toed- sloth. He is barely a week old, and has bladder problems. In order to fix him, Encar brought him to the pediatrician, and yes, you heard right. We brought a baby sloth to a human doctor for ultrasound. The ultrasounds came out to be unhelpful, as we are still unsure as to why he refuses to pee. Another mystery about sloths.
I am glad to say that one of our animal is doing great. Our baby owl is growing new feathers which will give us a better understanding of which species he is. Not only that, but he eats by himself and enjoys our company. If he continues on this path, he will grow to be an old owl who can eat and find its mate. As romantic as it sounds, owl mate for life, and therefore only have one partner their entire life. When that partner dies, they let themselves die as well. This baby will hopefully produce more babies and life a happy long life of baby making with his mate and flying all around Costa Rica with his little family.
I finally had time to feed the baby monkeys again today. I hadn't done it in a long time, and was wondering if any of the monkeys remembered me. I walked into the cage with my two baby bottles filled with milk, and at that point it didn't matter who I was, a swarm of baby howler monkeys rushed towards me. After having three monkeys on top of me, each fighting for the other's bottle, Lina remained. She had curled up on my arm, and was still sucking on the rubber nipple. While she was peacefully eating (she is the sweetest of the babies), Jet came over and smacked the bottle out of her hands. I graduated with a minor in Peace and Conflict studies, but no classes had prepared me for a monkey fight. I tried to calm Lina down, while reprimanding Jet at the same time. While Jet was holding his hands out towards the bottle and Lina was burying herself in my armpit, I finally gave up and gave more milk to Jet, and cuddled for a bit with Lina. She will have to learn to throw her own tantrums someday.
On Saturday, it was Poo's birthday party. Poo is the manager who had kindly shown me around on my first day. She had a little get together where everyone from the center showed up for the exception of Jimi and his wife. I was truly excited to see them, as I am always interested in people's spouses. It always intrigues me to see who marries who. Jimi will have to take his "mujer" out another time, so I can finally see her. Towards the end of the party, once everyone had been forced to dance with someone - I was spun around and dipped a couple times, a terrifying, yet lovely experience- Dora and I decided to call ourselves a taxi. Well, little did we know that the bar wasn't going to figure out the bill, so we set ourselves out on a mission to get money from everyone. Within 20 minutes, everyone had paid and Poo had bought me a free drink - which was quickly spilled by Laia.
The next day was my day off, and as tradition required, I woke up at 6 AM. I sat in my bed trying to think of things to do. It wasn't until I remembered someone mentioned zip-lining that I realized I needed to zip line in Costa Rica. I had found my activity, but now I had to find a center for it. After doing some research, and deciding that there was no cheaper zip lining than 50$ per person in Puerto Viejo, I had set my eyes on Geiko Trails adventures. They had a group leaving at 8:30, and one at 1PM. I might have some luck joining the 1 pm one since from the website, it looked like you had to reserve three days in advance. I googled the place, it was on Avenida 215, so after putting my cute dress one (which really was the only thing left I had to wear), I set out to find this agency. I am going to blame my womanhood for struggling with direction, but I am pretty certain I turned on the right street, as there is only so many streets to turn down on. After a bit of biking, I finally decided to check out other places. I had seen online something about Reef Runner, and I couldn't remember if the reviews were good or not. The important thing was that the place was open, so I entered the empty office to be greeted by a man who had the same stature as Rob Schneider's character (Ula) in 50 first dates. He informed me that they had a group leaving for scuba diving in three minutes, and after explaining that I didn't have a license, he encouraged me to go snorkeling. I had never snorkeled, and I wasn't sure if it was worth it, but to be honest, I had nothing to do and it was my day off. Being in the ocean for 5 hours, with lunch included and a boat ride sounded perfect for now. And so, within the three minutes, I made the decision to pay 35$ and go on this crazy adventure. As I was the only one going snorkeling, I would be abandoned on the beach until lunch time, and then abandoned again until it was time to leave. Snorkeling was an experience I was ready to have alone, and I agreed to be alone for hours at a time in a vast ocean and a tiny tube.
Needless to say, 5 hours was not merely enough. I could have spent the whole day in there. The beauty that is under the ocean is always surprising to me. I was dropped off at the reefs in Punta Uva, and I jumped immediately in the water. It took me about a minute to start drowning because I was too busy screaming at the beautiful fish rather than paying attention to the fact that I needed oxygen to breath, not salt water. This was just the beginning, I hadn't even gone to the deepest part of the ocean yet, where the lion fish, eels and schools of Foureye butterflyfish, Yellow head wrasse and Ocean surgeon fish were waiting for me. I followed each school of fish in the hope they would bring me to amazing lands where I could find more amazing crevasses, and beautiful fish. At first, I had to make up names for all those fish, since I obviously didn't go diving being a fish-o-phile. Most of them were called: strippy fish, blue fish, blue spotted ghetto fish, cow fish until I got home to look at pictures and remember their actual names. Unfortunately, my favorite fish down in the reef was not found on the internet, and will forever remain blue spotted ghetto fish. It looked like it had blue bling on, and that's how it got the name "ghetto fish". It was a beautiful fish that I wish I could have taken a picture with, but before my trip, I had decided to go cheap and not being a waterproof camera. Curse me and my wallet.
After snorkeling for five hours, I got back on the boat and the nice scuba diving instructor pointed out to me that I had a little sunburn. She giggled , while I put my head in my hands. I never have a little sunburn. It starts out as a little sunburn, and then later grows into a rageful second degree burn. There was nothing I could do about it now, but accept my fate that my back will hurt for a few days. After my excursion, I biked to the rescue center, where I put my pareo on and everyone gasps at my back. My expectations were met, and I had a terrible sunburn on my back. I suddenly felt it on the back of my legs, and later on the butt checks. As expected, Encar took one look at me and gave me the mom-eyes. The eyes that go "You cannot be serious, Allison. You will be the death of me with those sunburns.", the eyes that any mothers know to use to put their child to shame.
Today is the "day after". I had to take some painkillers, just in order to get up. I didn't skip out on work, since I was tour guiding today and I didn't have to sit down much. Once I was sat down though, I remained seated for a bit. At the end of the day, I felt so wiped out that I called myself and the three German girls a taxi to get home.
I got home to a nice lukewarm shower since the shared cold showers were being renovated. I could not be happier to have it today. And then I ate, and went back to watching Downtown Abbey.
Somethings never change!
No comments:
Post a Comment