Traveling While Introverted

Another week and a half of house sitting means another week and a half of random observations!

In our last post, we mentioned that we were pet sitting three dogs named Malo, Nano, and Pachuco. Often, on our morning walks, we would be accompanied by two neighborhood dogs. We nicknamed them Betty, a cute (but oh so thin) mutt gal, and Houdini, an elusive mutt that seemed to appear and disappear in the most random way. He loves crawling under the barbed wire fences into the nearby cattle pastures. Betty, on the other hand, wagged her tail when Yahm would talk to her (though she never pet her because of a fear of fleas) and definitely had a way with the boys. Hint: she was in heat at one point but we stopped any hanky panky.

Of course, being the observant introverts that we are, we noticed some of the other critters in the neighborhood. For example, did y’all know that roosters don’t crow when the sun comes up? No, no. Our childhood movies lied to us. They crow at 3am. Every day. 3am. And not, you know, once. But multiple times from 3am until sometime in the afternoon. Eventually, we got used to it and even crowed back when we saw them picking at scraps across the yard. Still, 3am. What a life.

Sometimes, we would see lizards dashing across the road and they were way too fast for us to photograph. Though we did manage to photograph an iguana as it scurried into our backyard. One night, we woke up because we needed to clean up some dog vomit (it happens) and Yahm noticed a gigantic frog on the wall. Adam carefully let it outside using a bag so that he wouldn’t touch it, just in case it had venomous mucous. While we were at a Chinese restaurant that Yahm wrote about in her latest post, Adam noticed a leaf insect hanging out on the wall. He bravely and gently captured it and took it outside. One of the waiters even opened the door for him so that the little guy could be free. Once outside, he happily flew to a leaf so that he could actually camouflage.

The house we were sitting is an agricultural area, so no wonder there are roosters and cattle, and, of course, someone walking their pig. You’ll notice in the video Malo going a little berserk and that he and the pig are about the same size. As a reminder, Malo is a Great Dane, the largest of the domesticated dog breeds.

Besides all of the show-stopping animals, we also spent more time at the beach. Instead of going to Tamarindo, we visited Playa Grande, a quieter beach town. Here, we encountered the famous phenomenon of paying for security at a parking lot (worth it) and had the chance to actually go into the water. One of the wild things about the Pacific Ocean in this part of the world is how dramatic the tides are throughout the day. Sometimes, the sea would recede so far from the shore. Other times, it would come up so high that it surprise-splashed us. The water itself could be a little chilly at first, but warmed up quickly, especially on a sunny day. Waves were good enough for surfers and we often saw crabs and rays swimming around.

After we completed our house sitting duties, we decided to stay in the Tamarindo area one more night. We stayed at a hotel called Onda, just a quick walk from Playa Grande. (If you’re visiting, we highly recommend it.) We wanted to make sure to soak up a little more ocean before we left to our next destination in Costa Rica because it might be a while before we get to the coast again. The time in the Tamarindo area was mostly spent house and dog sitting, but we really enjoyed getting to know the rhythms of living in this area. Watching the dogs gave us a routine and some much-needed companionship, besides each other. Now we head north into the mountains of Miravalles for some cool weather and hiking opportunities.

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