January 29 - “Costa Rica”

I know the whole Panama Canal experience was supposed to be the highlight of this trip and all.  But how can you beat getting to walk through the depths of an actual rain forest?  But first ...

We started the day with a tech issue.  The Carnival Communications app stopped working.  The error indicated something about an internet connection being required.  Interesting since we could get on the internet otherwise.  So ... another trip to the guest services desk.  He couldn’t figure it out either, even through all his back door methods.  So we did what we should have led with.  Deleted the whole thing and re-download it from the App Store. Worked like a charm.

So Costa Rica.  The only port thus far where we have been warned that the only reason we should be leaving the ship is to go on an excursion.  Unless you know someone personally, of course.  Just not safe.  So encouraging ...

We found out the name of the little Gilligan’s Island we passed.  Used to be called Island of the Sound of Birds.  Now it’s just Secret Island.  Love the mystery.  I think we might have stumbled on the real Jurassic Park.  Just saying ...

We boarded our tour bus and headed off through town.  Pretty ragged everywhere.  We did see three or four churches.  Three of the four were Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Halls.  Someone on another tour later told us they drove past the First Baptist Church in all of Costa Rica.  Always interesting to see a little Protestant presence in yet another Roman Catholic dominated area.  The big businesses here are Dole (as in pineapples) and Chiquita Bananas.  We passed a McDonald’s.  Our narrator’s daughter likes to “have her Happy Box, eat the cookie and play in the playground.”  Kids are kids all over the world.  He told us that they had an earthquake just last week.  7.8.  Yikes.

As we approached the rain forest he told us to watch for wildlife.  First on the list?  Cows.  Yep.  But they were all Brahma’s.  Seems that is the only breed that can survive there.  They also have 122 different species of bats.  Someone asked if he thought it would rain on us.  His answer was classic: “If it rains we’ll get wet.  Later on we will dry.”  Profound stuff ...

The rain forest itself was pretty amazing.  Here’s a random list of the critters we saw:
Sloth (Yes, April, they were just hanging around, staring at passers by, hoping to be adopted and taken back to the states in someone’s luggage).
Big Ants (Some of them get to be two inches long.  Biggest I saw was maybe an inch.  Just a baby).
Howler monkey (He was a tiny black and white fellow.  Didn’t howl at us though.  Just hung from a branch by his tail and stared at the goons passing by in the big cage).
Bats (One of the Exhibit halls we went to had an entire family flying around in it.  Fortunately they stayed near the ceiling or just hung around napping).
Frogs (None of them spit at us, but they were really colorful.  I spotted a black and yellow one on a branch.  Others were red or just brown).
The Jurassic Butterfly and moth room (Well, not really Jurassic, but some of them were really big.  And blue.  Actually they were all sorts of colors.  We learned that the stuff that comes off on your fingers when your touch a butterfly is not pollen.  It’s scales.  File that in your memory banks).
Hummingbirds (I’m pretty sure we reunited with a little guy who stopped in our back yard a while back ...).
Toucan (That would be the cereal spokesbird.  They weren’t very colorful, though.  Kind of disappointing).
Owl (This majestic guy was taking a nap far up in a tree).
Snakes (These critters were encased in an exhibit like at the zoo.  Fine by me)
Parrots (We could hear these chatterboxes long before I finally saw a few flying through the tops of the trees.  Racket.  Racket. Racket).
Termites (well, actually it was just their mounds).
Policeman (These guys have their blood type embroidered on their uniform sleeve.  Just in case).

The trees were nothing short of humongous.  And at one spot we saw a pineapple, mangoes and bananas all growing wild next to each other.  It was a cloudy day, so it wasn’t really all that hot.  Humid though.  Humidity never gets below 80%.  Made us kind of homesick, actually.

Bucket list number seventy-seven ... Rain Forest ... check.

Psalms 8:1 says, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.”

Father, as majestic as that rain forest was, to think you are more so is just mind boggling.  And to think you love me?  Just wow.  Amen.