Tico Tour Report

We just got back from a great week in Costa Rica with the Orlando Thompsons. Here's our report. Costa Ricans call themselves "Ticos" and they say "pura vida" (literally "pure life") as a greeting to indicate that life is great, especially if you slow down and enjoy it. It's the official motto of Costa Rica.

We took lots of pictures so follow us on our adventure and see if we took the Tico motto to heart.

We hiked volcanoes...

swam and beach combed...

and ate lots of great food.

We stayed in a fancy hacienda with a game room, an atrium, a pool and great views ...

and in jungle bungalows with mosquito nets and hammocks for sleeping. When grandma heard the howler monkeys in the early morning (they are the loudest land animal), she thought they might be wanting to kidnap her grandchildren sleeping in the hammocks and raise then to be wildmen like Tarzan, so she quickly got up and brought them inside. Later she found out that howler monkeys are rather small--just their voice is loud. They used recordings of howler monkeys for the dinosaur sounds in the Jurastic Park and other dinosaur movies.

We spend lots of time walking through the jungles looking for wild animals with a book about Costa Rican animals as our guide.

Joseph had a check list and was in charge of identifying birds. He must have identified at least 20 or 30 but they flew too fast for me to get pictures except for this sampling. The first builds next that hang from palm trees. The second is a parrot. The third is a quetzal carved out of a tire that hung on our porch. The last is a pelican that was wandering around an animal rescue center.

Blake was in charge of large mammals. He had no trouble finding lots of monkeys and sloths. At an animal rescue center he also found an anteater, deer, and an ocelot.

Spencer was in charge of reptiles and amphibeans. His most exciting find was a poisonous eyelash viper. He found several. At the wildlife rescue center he also found a cayman and a red eyed tree frog.

Tatum was in charge of finding insects and crustaceans. She found a termite nest in a tree, leaf carrying ants, lots of hermit crabs, and several large spiders--especially in the morning when we'd leave our bungalow and walk down the jungle paths and walk into their webs.

Cooper put himself in charge of sounding like a howler monkey.

Of course, you know what grandma put herself in charge of finding.

We also found for Joseph his dream car for when he turns 16.