Lightning, Thunder, and Toucans!

The past few days have been busy! Now that I’m somewhat oriented to the farm, I braved the local bus and accompanied a guest to Ciudad Quesada, a nearby town about 45 minutes away. The views of the countryside are incredible! So lush and green. And the bus ride was entertaining. On the way back from Ciudad Quesada a pastor climbed onto the bus and, from what I gathered using my very rusty Spanish, he delivered a passionate 30 minute sermon while promoting his church. Just as we were getting back to Luna Nueva, the skies let loose and the rain began to pound. Amidst the gushing rain, I made to take the guest to her bungalow with the golf cart when Lorena, one of our lovely cooks, called me to the laundry room. Once there, I watched her unfold a ten gallon plastic garbage bag. I thought she was going to stuff some laundry in it for me to drop off on my way, but then she tore it up until it was just one large sheet of plastic. I had no idea what she was going to do with it until she wrapped it around my waist like a skirt and then zipped up my rain jacket for me—she had just rain-proofed me! Everyone who works here is so nice! It’s really like one big family who all takes care of each other, and they do a particularly good job taking care of me, making sure I am well fed, happy, and dry.

In addition to being simply captivated by the rain, I also love the thunder and lightning. Back home in California there are no episodes of lightning like there are here. In the evenings from the dinner table I love to watch the lightning off in the distance. It’s an amazing light show. From the observation tower at night the lightning lights up small sections of clouds against a foreground of fireflies. The thunder is really incredible too. Yesterday on a walk through Juan’s Garden I was happily strolling along, munching on rambutans that I picked off trees when I saw a bolt of lightning that didn’t look too terribly far off. It was immediately followed by a boom of thunder that I felt deep in my stomach—the same way that a loud bass at a concert would make you feel. It was soon followed by another set. When lightning is close I heard that one should avoid clearings and avoid standing next to tress. Since those were my only two options I was at a small loss of what to do. In times of doubt I look at animals and mimic them because they always seem to know what to do. Luckily there were some goats nearby and through the whole encounter they did not seem very alarmed and just went about munching on leaves. I decided to follow their example and not worry about being struck by lightning while I made my way back. It was quite an adventure.

Aside from the wonders of rain, I saw toucans for the first time yesterday! There were about ten of them flying around in the forested area behind the kitchen. I also saw from the observation tower one that was flying over the main house. Although it looked like its large yellow beak would weight it down, it was quite graceful. Iti, our lovely lodge manager, and Steven tell me that toucans in this area are everywhere, kind of like pigeons back home, so to them toucans are nothing spectacular. Iti even claims to dislike toucans because they aren’t the innocent fruitarians that many are led to believe—they eat other birds and their young! I can’t wait to venture into the trails some more and see what other wildlife creatures I’ll see. One of the guests saw a jaguarondi a few days ago. In a twisted way I would love to be face to face with a jaguarondi, but in a saner way, maybe I’d like to just see it from a distance.

On a quick side note, I mentioned rambutans above and I must explain what they are. A rambutan is an incredibly delicious fruit that looks somewhat like a very large and spiny strawberry and when you peel the off the outer peel, inside it looks like a lychee. It also tastes somewhat like a lychee. Delicious! Right now it’s rambutan season so the guys are hauling in crates of it all the time. This is one fruit that I don’t think I will ever get enough of!

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