Semana Santa

Jose holds up a deadly Coral snake he killed just outside Janet’s apartment on Easter Sunday. Note the color bands: Red & Yellow May Kill a Fellow. Also found at Tigre: harmless false-corals with black separating yellow and red bands and they are not complete circles.

Holy Week. Traditionally celebrated in Costa Rica with huge, crowded Christian processions held in just about every Costa Rican village and town. Passion - they really get physical on Good Friday – in some towns, the designated Jesus actually drags a cross and gets hung up; then, on Saturday, he gets shrouded, hefted up by many hands and carried down the streets; and by the Resurrection on Sunday, just about everyone is carrying home some incoherent body from all the family fiestas… Everybody is on vacation - No work! No school! Off to the beach, river or mountains; camping, sporting and having a great time.

We stayed home the entire week except Wednesday, when the Four Horsemen celebrated their 9th Annual British Birthday Boys Party. This year it was a rather subdued affair. Pestilence continues to recover from surgery, and couldn’t party to excess, though he did manage to moon the camera… War’s family abandoned him for the beach. Death is taking more care what he eats and drinks these days. Famine was exhausted with a sore throat and coughing - and no, he would not accept any honey-lemony-herbal remedy from the likes of me; only a dose of Gin & Tonic would do. He is still readjusting to paradise after a week in pleasantly chilly (to him) Michigan.

Normally, during Semana Santa, our employees prefer to stay home and work, and get paid overtime - but not this year. Everybody wanted to go camping. Where did they go? Right here at Finca El Tigre’s Rancho Abajo. Why would Janet and the Parra gang prefer to sleep in the jungle with all those nocturnal creatures – big scary spiders and deadly snakes, when they could remain in the comfort of their own beds, just 500 meters up the road? Because camping is fun!

And what does that mean for us? We find ourselves with the whole place to ourselves. Home alone! No staff. Yippee! Let’s go all out and play one of our favorite games – Guard Patrol. So we don our N.O.L.A. S.W.A.T. caps and head out to do the rounds. Up at the water tanks we have a view of the entire Finca, and on out to the Nicoya Peninsula. The Guards meet for a tryst at the stable yard, where the dogs still laze around. The dogs take over night duty at dusk.

We visit the chickens. We watch Roger the Rooster pace back and forth just outside the hen house, strutting his stuff and puffing his feathers. Should we let the girls out and get a good show? Chicken watching is such fun – you definitely learn all about ‘pecking order’ - seems every animal has a behavior we can recognize in the human species. And Roger Rooster has such fun going after all his girls.

But it’s too late in the day and predators lurk about!

We finish patrol back in the kitchen for gin & tonics, glasses filled with ice. Solar living is good with modern, efficient appliances. The dogs take over the patrol for the night.

So much has suddenly burst into bloom! The entire countryside has fragrance in the air from blooming coffee and citrus and so much more…
…Solanaceae species are in bloom and fruit. Need I say more? The family of strong medicines, poisons, intoxicating fragrances and … mankind’s beloved tomato. In the garden, I associate the Solanac family with exotic scents and spices and sensory pleasures. Everywhere, the butterflies, birds and bees flutter all around the Actinus arborescens (Guittite) creating a mouth-dropping spectacle. You just stand there, paralyzed, watching the scene. Time seems to stand still. So many species of bees and wasps – an entomologist’s treasure trove. Other El Tigre Solanacs in bloom/fruit: Brugmansia candida, Datura species (Deadly Nightshade), Solanums (Naranjillas), Capsicums (Full range of peppers from Sweet to Piquant such as Tabasco, Habanero, Cayenne, etc.), Cestrum species (strong smells: sometimes enticing, sometimes stinky), Nicotiana tabacum (yes, the smoking kind but we don’t).

Achiotillo (Vismea baccifera CLUSIAC.) is also blooming and fruiting. A few of the white-faced monkeys at El Tigre rub the orange sap all over their faces as a kind of makeup. This morning, some of the monkeys were climbing all over the canopy of a huge Miconia argentea (Santa Maria) tree, feasting on the fruits and not paying any attention to Flopsy and me, sitting below. The dogs used to bark and harass the monkeys, and the monkeys responded by throwing sticks and fruits down at them. Now they just ignore each other. This is progress - becoming harmless to each other…

There’s great bird watching now with so much in fruit. It is said that to see the birds, look for the fruiting trees and insect habitats. At Tigre, just sit down near a fruiting tree and enjoy the show. It takes a few minutes for the birds to get used to your presence, but soon they come right back out and begin feeding again and you get a great show. If you want a list of bird species at El Tigre, then Google: bird list, Hacienda El Rodeo, Mora, Costa Rica. One of the best bird-watching trees in bloom right now is the Hortiga (Urera baccifera). Saw a kind of bright, orange-breasted warbler - not sure what - Skutches Book still in storage. What I’ve learned is that you don’t need to walk to find birds - sorry Bill and Cyndy! But Cyndy did it though, after battling and winning breast cancer – she hiked all the way to Tigre hill and back.