Hikers - We Cut a New Trail!

Yesterday, Armando proudly announced that he had completed the new trail. He’d finally done it! He’d finally managed to cut a new trail through the old secondary forest, which connected our famous Ceiba pentandra Tree to Los Alvarados Charral. We have been talking about doing this for the last two years.

We already have a network of nice trails connecting all the pastures and upper woodlands to the hardwoods at Tigre Hill. We call this our easy trail, although you work up quite a sweat hiking it, because it doesn’t require hard climbing or agility. We also have trails going down into the old growth forest, including my favorite Waterfall hike. This spectacular hike takes about 5 hours to complete, but visitors rarely get that chance because we usually have to cut it short and bail out because of an injury.

What we needed was a shorter trail, which allowed visitors to experience old secondary growth forest without committing to more than 2-3 hours of hiking or risking mishaps. So after much machete work with the guys, Armando told me it was ready for me to hike.

But was it really ready? Armando’s idea of a trail is not something most humans would even recognize. One time, after getting lost on one of his ‘trails’, he realized that the guys would have to clean it up enough so that I could at least see where it went. Sometimes I think these guys navigate their way through that forest by scent! It’s amazing enough that he created a trail through jungle without using GPS. But he assured me that I could perfectly handle the new trail.

So off we went: me, Armando and Armando’s grandson, Little Armando – a cheerful 12 year old kid, with freckles, red hair and a wiry body equipped to climb all over the place like a monkey, just like his grandfather. Some of our dogs also came along, as usual. We started from the Charral and began hiking down into the forest. Armando designed the trail to take us past interesting trees and it zigzagged down the mountain. After the first heart-stopping, precipitous drop, I discovered that Armando had not cut the easy way down – it was certainly the most interesting way for botanists, but not easy. And yes, if they could manage it, visitors too would marvel at the magnificent Guayabon (Terminalia oblonga), Guanacaste (Enterolobium cyclocarpum), Nispero (Manilkara sp.), Mora (Maclura sp.), Ficus species, Brosimum colorado, Cedrela species, Guarea glabra, Guachipelin (Diphysa Americana), Cenizaro (Samanea saman), Yuco (Bernoullia flammea) and many others - plus some we could not yet identify.

In fact, Armando made a point of cutting the trail to reach not yet identified trees so we could take botanists there in the future for an ID. On several occasions, rather than follow the natural terrain along flat or gently sloping areas, he would swoop us down a steep incline in order not to miss, say, an unknown tree in the coffee family. Maybe a Genipa - but quien sabe? There are some genuine puzzles down there that we need help in figuring out. I just hope we can find dendrologists who are willing to give it a go.

We did see some interesting details related to natural succession. The fast growing trees, such as Guazuma and Achiotillo (Vismea baccifera), were already in decline as the slower growing hardwoods began shading them out. We saw a beautiful Chaperno (Lonchocarpus sp.), in full bloom, completely enclosed by a massive strangler fig. It only has a few more years yet of life but it still mesmerized us in its captivity with a canopy full of gorgeous violet flowers. Nature is cruel sometimes but, as Armando says, the dying all served their purpose in life.

When we got back, I was filthy from climbing and falling (neither Armando had a hair out of place of course) and Little Armando observed that perhaps they could cut stairs into the trail to facilitate future hikes. His grandfather gave me an alarmed look as if to say: “Say it ain’t so! Say you won’t turn a pristine forest into a tourist’s Disneyworld. What could I say? The only possible compromise. We would need to hike it several times to tamp it down enough to gain decent footing and perhaps the deer would lend us a hand by discovering it and using it as their highway.

But with inventory work yet to be done, I could never insist on the easy way.

Hotel TexMex

The rumours are true. We’ve moved out of the house in Ciudad Colon and into Hotel TexMex. Yep, that’s where we all can meet for Margaritas and Caldo Real. Come on over and join us for dinner sometime! It looks like we’ll be here for a while because the house out at Finca El Tigre won’t be ready until April- at last word. The first word was August of 2006 so we’re not sure yet if April really is the last word.

We do have an excellent architect and a very professional building team. Work is exceptional - very high quality throughout. Progress is slow.

We moved our housekeeper, Janet, over to her casita this week with all our brood of dogs and cats. She joins the Finca El Tigre workers and another brood of dogs and cats already living there. So Janet’s first order of business is to blend the two packs of animals. Kind of like an Animal Brady Brunch.

Hotel TexMex is going to be quite an adventure considering that El Jefe is used to staying at 5-star Hotels, usually upgraded to a suite, and often without paying anything at all, due to massive frequent flyer miles and platinum status and all the perks! His idea of roughing it is sitting out on the terrace at the Marriott.

So how did we end up at Hotel Tex Mex? Well it took some convincing because I was really quite shocked at the idea at first, and friends had made their homes available to prevent this sort of madness. But we are in transition from major life changes – Gerry leaving corporate life, and both of us changing to a lifestyle of residing and commuting between Finca El Tigre and New Orleans.

Hotel TexMex is our transition chapter - kind of like going from the sublime to the ridiculous. And, if we want to get right to the point, Gerry’s pal and personal physician, Dr. Bob, owns the place. Gerry hasn’t been for a medical checkup for over 10 years but if he has any sort of medical issue, he simply pops over to TexMex for dinner and a chat with Dr. Bob. Dr. Bob was once a Las Vegas Orthopedic Surgeon. He retired, moved to Paradise, got bored and opened up Tex Mex. We’ve been dining at his establishment every Sunday ever since. Now we live here.

We took two rooms opposite each other and installed ourselves, a small amount of luggage, our bed, towels, sheets, cleaning supplies…. Dr. Bob recently renovated the rooms so they’re actually quite comfortable, with good ventilation, excellent water pressure and tiled bathrooms. The main ingredients for survival.

The first night, we discovered some of those pesky tiny ants second-lining across our bathroom wall from the door frame to an outside window. No big shock – I’ve seen them at the Dentist’s too. At this point, we have taken the strategy of just ignoring them. It appears that they are just passing through. If they divert from that line, however and begin invading the room, we will terminate that strategy by terminating them!

Now that we’re over the initial shock of moving in here, we’ve settled into a rather pleasant routine. We can use the laundry facilities, make cappuccino in the morning and wander just down the block for the newspaper.

All these years, we always just eaten TexMex food or Chicken Soup – locally famous for hangovers and known as Caldo Real. But living here, we’ve had the opportunity to try other items on the menu and have been pleasantly surprised. Caesar salad with chicken -excellent! Fish dinner - very good, very fresh-tasting tilapia. And for all of you Buffalo Wing fanatics (yes, you members of the ‘Secret Wings Society’): the buffalo wings are crispy, moderately spicy and served properly with blue cheese salad dressing and plenty of celery. They provide extra hot salsa for those of us who like to kick it up a nice logarithmic notch.

So we have settled in and plan to stay here until at least a bedroom is ready for us to move into over at El Tigre.

Dr. Bob may have to expand that menu!

Bug Managment

Now In flower (among others):
Gallinazo (Schizolobium parahyba)
Chapero (Lonchocarpus- one species)
Uruca (Trichilia hirta)

It’s dry season. Most of the gorgeous butterflies have gone up into the trees or morphed, and the annual bug invasion has begun. It’s war out there – especially whenever the seasons change. Dry season is when the bees get ornery. As our Swiss entomologist neighbor, Paul, will tell us, there are many, many species of bees and wasps. Many flowers are only pollinated by one particular species of bee, so all are needed for the great balance in the forest.

But how do we deal with the stinging bees and bugs that invade a bit too close to home? Well, first of all, if you ask our trusty entomologist neighbor about the bugs, he will tell us that the word ‘bug’ in English, refers to just one family of insects, according to a Scottish author. We can’t recall which family or what author because we were too busy laughing. But he was serious! Guess we all get serious when people make fun of what we do!

Obviously, I’m no specialist of entomology. I basically treat insects according to my relationship with them. They are fascinating to look at in the forest. And we treat the really awesome, rarely seen beetles (like the one I saw the other day that looked just like a bright, yellow VW-Bug) with reverence and respect. And there is nothing more entertaining than waking up one more morning and finding a huge, colorful, science-fiction like insect clinging to the window screen out on the terrace. Now that is something awesome to behold and out comes the camera. We rarely see insects inside the house because we have screened, sealed and basically barricaded the place up to anything that flies, creeps or crawls. This is important for life in the tropical forest! We have scorpions, snakes, and creepy crawlies you couldn’t even imagine, all of which belong outside of the house!

We do tolerate one exception to a bug invasion inside the house. When the ‘visitors’ come, we allow them to swarm into the house to clean the whole place out. After just one hour or so, they swarm on out and leave the place spotlessly clean. Who are they? You will have to ask our neighbor, Paul, for the species name but they are a type of marauding ant. There are millions of them constantly on the move, and they eat everything in their path – scorpions/spiders/bugs- they take them all! It’s a bit shocking at first and most newcomers to the tropics try to stop the onslaught by spraying the perimeter of their house with insecticide. That is effective but it’s a disservice to the ‘visitors’ and to themselves.

You don’t need to fumigate your house in the tropics because the ‘visitors’ will periodically do it for you. We’ve been at our neighbor’s when the ‘visitors’ interrupted our cocktails out on the terrace. Now picture this: here we are in heels and cocktail dresses, when suddenly, Gabi says – “The visitors have come!” We look at the edge of the terrace and see that it’s turning black from the millions of invading ants. So what do we do? We simply move our cocktails over to another terrace. Now keep in mind that in small, bungalow houses, you actually have to leave the premises for an hour or so until the ants have finished cleaning.

As I write this, we are remodeling the house out at El Tigre. You can imagine our interview with the architect. He asks: “What are the important features you would like for your home - a state-of-the-art kitchen? An open, rustic décor?” Our answer: “We want you to build us a fortress against bugs. No bug hiding places! We want a bug unfriendly house.”

The details of how our architect dealt with this will be left for another day- and no, he didn’t build us a moat. The house isn’t done yet, so we don’t know if it will actually be bug unfriendly, or, more to the topic, if the ‘visitors’ will even need to go in and clean out the house now and then. My best guess is probably, but hopefully not too often.

So that’s how we are attempting to deal with bugs in the home. We deal with the bugs out in the gardens and the stables very differently. It’s absurd to screen up the horse stables so we need a different tact. Basically, we require continuous vigilance to keep the creepy crawlies at bay. The barn cats kill snakes and just about anything else that moves. During the day, the chickens scratch their way through the horse stalls and out into the gardens, eating larvae. Everything else of nuisance we annihilate with a squirt bottle full of soapy water. Any kind of soap will do. We use cheap laundry detergent.

Got wasps building a nest on the stable eave? Spray them with soap. The wet ones fall and die and the others fly away.

Got little worms eating the passion flower leaves? Spray them with soap. They drop off and die.

We ignore most wasps and bees outside because they are just going about their business and not being a nuisance. We only use the soapy water if they move in too close and start, say, stinging our animals. Then we have to take them out.

Some bees do not like dry, windy weather. If a nest gets too aggressive and they start stinging our animals, we attach a kerosene lighted rag at the end of a huge bamboo pole and burn the nest after dark, when they’re all in there. This requires considerable skill so I wouldn’t recommend that you try this at home. We don’t want to burn down the tree with the bees!

We do have to concoct something special for horse biting flies – but that’s only a problem during a few months in the rainy season. Speaking of that, anybody know where I can get a cheap still in Costa Rica? Somebody who makes Guaro, maybe? I need to distill some citronella. Honest.