Ginger Is Not Coming, Kona

     I have always been saddened and touched whenever I hear any of those stories about a faithful dog who waits everyday for their master, who has died to come back home.  We have a similar sort of thing happening here with our dog Kona.

    For about a year, our neighbors had a young dog named Ginger.  When Kona first met Ginger, she was overjoyed with having another canine in the neighborhood.  Kona quickly learned that if she went outside, faced toward the neighbor’s house and barked, Ginger would come over, and they would sniff each other.  After about a minute, Kona had had enough, and would come back into the house, but still it was a very important part of Kona’s life.

    Sadly, six months or so, Ginger  was hit and killed by a car.   Ever since, Kona wants to go outside and every time she does, she stands, facing toward the neighbor’s house and barks and barks.  I wonder if Kona will ever realize that Ginger will not be coming over to see her.

    It becomes very frustrating that you cannot communicate everything to your pets, so that they will understand.

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It's Starting To Look Like Winter

     Of course things can always change, but right now the Robson Valley is starting to look like winter.  The pond has frozen over, there is a couple of inches of snow on the ground, and the mountains are blanketed with the white stuff.  So far we have escaped frigid temperatures, but the forecast is predicting  -21°C (-6°F) for this Saturday.  I am hoping we get a bit more snow on the ground for insulation, before that happens.

    These conditions do feel a lot closer to what used to be normal, than what we were experiencing last year, when we had a “green” Christmas, without snow on the ground.

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Costa Rica 1992: Stiffed By Taxi Man Jorge

          We hiked a bit further along and at the top of a hill, we could see below us the restaurant where we had told Jorge the taxi man, to pick us up.  We still had plenty of time before that was supposed to happen, but we thought we’d head down there anyway.   To get there, we followed a cow path, until we encountered a barbed wire fence with no gate, so we carefully climbed through the fence and into a newer pasture, toward the rear of the restaurant, only to find yet another barbed wire fence to cross.  Obviously, this was not a well-used tourist trail.

        Once down at the restaurant, we still had two hours to wait, so we decided to just walk down the road for an hour, then turn back.  By this time it was midday and the sun was fierce.  Down a hill we saw the fancy building with the volcanic river pools where we had taken a dip the night before.  Up a long hill, and down another, we spotted the hot spring pools where other tours swam.

        I spotted a woodpecker, similar to the pileated-variety we have in BC, but this one had yellow by its bill, a white spot over the eye, and no comb on its head.  It sat patiently in the tree while I dug my camera out, then flew away before I could take its picture.

        We were exhausted, so hiked back down the road to the restaurant, and arrived at a quarter to one.   We ordered some Cokes and waited for Jorge to come.  One o’clock, one fifteen, one thirty, one forty-five, and finally two o’clock, but no Jorge.

        After a further long wait, we finally realized Jorge wasn’t going to come to drive us back to La Fortuna, so we decided to hitchhike the 11 kilometers.  Fortunately, an Italian couple took pity on us and drove us back to our hotel.

        My back was pretty wrecked for the rest of the day, so we didn’t do anything except take some photos of the Arenal Volcano when the clouds lifted more than they had since our arrival.

        For supper I had a banana milkshake, rice, and shrimp, while my wife tried rice, chicken, and black bean soup (with an egg in it.)  She was not impressed with the soup.  

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Costa Rica 1992: "A Snake!"

      At the far end of the picnic area we came upon a gate, which we unhooked and entered a trail.  We began walking up the trail, which was just a bush road, carefully avoiding the cow paddies.  There was a total lack of signage, so we turned around and walked all the way back to the Park Keeper, to asked if that was the trail.  “Si,” was his answer, as best as we could interpret it.

    So again we walked up the trail, and to our dismay, found that it led to another cow pasture.  Fortunately, following the trail eventually led us to an actual jungle.  Once under the thick canopy of trees, we stopped to listen to the many varied songs of the tropical birds.  Look as we might, we were  never able to spot any of them.

    My wife made the big discovery of the day.   As we trekked down the trail, she suddenly exclaimed, “Snake!” and pointed to the low plants on the side of the road.  I noticed a little tail slip under some leaves, as my wife, in great haste, headed for the security of middle of the road and stayed there.  

    I carefully pried the leaves away to get a closer look at the little guy, and got quite a shock.  It was a Fer-de-lance, the most poisonous snake in South America (and I assume Costa Rica).  It was just a baby, about as thick as a pencil, and 10 inches long, but it had the obvious arrowhead-shaped head and the ochre-colored patterns. 

    I was happy we had run into just a baby Fer-de-lance, because they can grow up to seven feet long.  I took a photo, hoping the picture would turn out, but despite looking at that slide many, many, times, I have never been able to see the snake in it.  (I got the photo above from the internet.)

    Spotting the Fer-de-lance, certainly did have an effect on the rest of our hike.  My wife changed her hiking habits, and began staying on bare ground, the best she could, and rather than both of us walking side by side, I took the lead and she followed where I walked.

    After traveling through about 300 meters of jungle, we found ourselves in yet another pasture, but we were able to tell we were on the right trail, because we saw the second lake, whose size was more pond-like.  We quickly cancelled any thought of taking a swim, because, cows and swimming don’t mix well.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: A Disappointing Los Lagos Park

      The following day, was cloudy with a few sunny breaks, but they broke in a way that never allowed us to see the tip of the volcano.  The Hotel Ambugue Bureo, where we stayed was a bed and breakfast, and our breakfast consisted of Corn Flakes, juice, and fruit (watermelon, pineapple, carrots, and some kind of orange melon).

    After breakfast we donned our jungle gear (heavy duty pants with a lot of pockets, and the “gum” boots (“Wellington” or rubber boots), which I had lugged all the way from McBride).  We walked out to street to find a taxi that would take us to Los Lagos, a park featuring two lakes, that was mentioned in our guide book.  Our plan was to hike the jungle trail, maybe swim in one of the lakes, and then have the taxi bring us back to the hotel four hours later, from the restaurant at the trail’s end.

    We felt fortunate when we got a taxi, driven by a guy named Jorge, who said he would take us to Los Lagos, then pick us up at 1:00 at the restaurant for a fee of $12 CAD round trip.  As is often the case, when we got to Los Lagos, the reality didn’t quite live up to our expectations.   We forked out the $2 to get through a gate on the road and the little girl, who was the attendant wrote out a receipt and gave it to us, then unhooked the gate to allow the taxi to drive through.

    I had thought that we would be hiking to the lakes, but instead Jorge drove us down a rough “road” made up of two parallel concrete strips for the tires, with periodic speed bumps every 50 meters.  The speed bumps seemed pretty redundant considering the already bumpy concrete strips.  The “road” took us through a huge pasture complete with cows milling around, standing on the road (flashes came to me of every grazing lease in the many back valleys in the Robson Valley), to a grassy park beside one of the lakes.

    When we got out of the cab, we were dismayed, because the surroundings were nothing like the natural jungle we had expected.  Instead there were some picnic tables and shelters, a chapel, complete with Bible verses on signs nailed to the trees.  In the lake there were pedal-bike boats.  The only redeeming thing we found about the park were the big trees that had fortunately been spared by the developers, and the low clouds that gave the trees a primal feel.  We spotted some tropical birds, including a toucan-type bird with a large puke-colored green bill.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Stressful Drive Home

     Yesterday we had medical and dental appointments in Prince George, so we had to make the two and a half hour drive up in the early morning, then make the two and a half hour drive back home starting at 3:00.   The drive is always dangerous, with the curves and hills of the mountainous terrain.   Highway 16 also full of big logging and freight trucks racing to get where they are going, but once fall arrives and winter approaches, things get even worse, as shortened daylight, darkness, and inclement weather are added to the experience.

    I took the photo above of the interesting clouds as we began our drive home to McBride.  It was the highlight of our return trip, and I didn’t realize it then, that the clouds were an indicator of problems ahead.  As we proceeded, the clouds became thicker and darker.  Soon it began to rain.  Then the darkness intensified as night fell.

    Night driving has become very problematic.  The headlights of oncoming traffic have become much brighter, causing my eyes to pretty much blot out everything except the blinding headlights quickly advancing toward me.  All I could do was to watch the white line on the side of the highway, in order to tell me where I was on the highway.  Rain added to my stress, as each truck barreled toward me.  I often started to brake until the trucks got past me.

    As we got to the Robson Valley, we began to run into slush on Highway 16.  Fortunately, it wasn’t thick enough to cause the car to swerve, but it was an indication of even worse driving conditions that we will have to face once winter arrives.   

    I always thank my lucky stars every time we arrive back home safely.  We try to limit our trips to Prince George during the winter, but sometimes they can’t be avoided.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Inside A Hornet's Nest

     Remember the large hornet’s nest that was hanging on the edge of our carport?  The hornets had all left to burrow into the ground to over-winter, but I thought I would just keep the nest hanging there, because a friend had told me that if it remained, then next summer the hornets would not come there again, and build their nest somewhere else.

    However yesterday, when I walked onto the carport, I saw many little paper-like pieces of the nest all over the floor, and when I checked the nest I saw that two big holes had been made in it.  I assume it was a bird that was checking to see if there was anything to eat inside it.  With the nest ruined, I took it down and was going to put it on the compost pile.

    Before I did that, I started to rip it apart, and was a fascinated at the inner structure of the thing.  Inside there were four plater-like layers for the nesting cylinders of decreasing size, that were held together by a central stem.  It was an incredible nature-built piece of architecture.  It seemed like it would quite a feat to build such a thing in the dark, inside the nest, but I guess hornets have been perfecting their building for millions of years.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca