MIAMI TO COSTA RICA

Oooh, nature. Yuck.

Every day that I wake up in Costa Rica I try to remember what a gorgeous place I live in.  I try not to take it's beauty for granted.  The mountains, the greenery, the birds, the butterflies...all of it, sooo pretty and so special.  At least that's what I try to tell myself.  "Enjoy the beauty."  "Isn't this special."  All the usual bullshit.  Fact is, some days I'm just blown away by how much new stuff I see and how creepy or annoying some of it is.  Take the birds; I take my morning walk and see maybe ten different kinds of brightly colored birds sitting in the trees or flying around.  Yellow birds, green birds, humming-birds...these aren't just the usual pigeons or wrens, these birds are really cool.  Unfortunately a lot of them start singing at 3 am or make some repetitive shrieking noise, for hours on end, that makes me wish I had an air rifle and a Hefty bag.  I had a small butterfly garden in Miami and I saw a lot of zebra butterflies and monarchs but here, just walking to AutoMercado one morning, a blue Morpho flitted past me!  Right there on the sidewalk, this gorgeous iridescent blue butterfly just appeared and it's not the only one I've seen.  On the other hand, last week while walking the dog, I screamed loud enough to make every dog in the neighborhood bark for the next ten minutes when I felt something tickle my foot and looked down to see some HUGE black wasp-looking thing with blue wings crawling out of a hole in the ground.  I thought it looked a lot like a wasp I saw on Animal Planet that lays it's eggs on huge burrowing spiders.  Burrowing spiders...alrighty then.  Since then, I won't walk in the park without wearing rubber boots.  In Miami, the most common bug one comes across is the Palmetto bug - basically a humongous brown cockroach.   Inside, outside, day, night, rain or dry season, the creepy f***ers were everywhere!  I've seen maybe five palmetto bugs since I got here.  No run-of-the-mill roaches in CR, but I walked into the garage one evening to find a rhinoceros beetle toddling around.  Enormous.  Better than a roach though because my kid was fascinated by it and I was happy to pick it up and take photos of it to send to friends back in the states.  It was only afterward that I realized that my new Twinkie-sized bug buddy most likely used that huge horn for rolling turd balls and that washing my hands would probably be a good idea.  I've seen some cool spiders; golden orb weavers, crab spiders, skinny white ones, bright green ones.  I found a neon red one with twinkly little gold eyes waiting for me on my pillow one night.  I've found ticks on the dogs, moths in the pantry, ants (4 different kinds!) eating my shea butter hand lotion. Sometimes I'm not sure what kind of creature I'm looking at. About a month ago I was walking the dog in the rain and came across a blob of black caterpillars in the grass.  I whipped out my little digital and leaned down close to take a photo when the sky lit up and an enormous bolt of lightening struck close enough to make the dog yelp and run for the house.  I followed.  I still don't know how often people get struck by lightening here and I didn't want to find out first-hand.  Last night I came across another blob of caterpillars and was able to get a photo.  There is something sinister and icky about a whole group of these things crawling across the sidewalk together.  Like something out of a B movie.  In an effort to be more at peace with the creatures that make my life here a little bit more exotic, I'm trying to find the names of all the things I come across.  If you know what these black caterpillars are (butterflies?), if they're poisonous (I don't think so) and what they're doing (sex, lunch?) please tell me.  Maybe knowing more will suppress my urge to squash them or spray them with Raid.  

Nothing is simple.

The last time I had to go to the bank here was about three weeks ago.  I went to take out a couple hundred dollars.  What should have been a five minute transaction turned into half an hour of pleading and begging to get them to give me my money despite my not having my passport.  A few weeks earlier I'd finally gotten a debit card, but only after I signed ten different documents and had my husband sign one or two that, I think, confirmed that it was okay with him if the 'little woman' got a card on 'his' account.  I try not to let this stuff frustrate me.  I just let every Time-Suck I have to endure prepare me in some way for the next time I run into the same situation.  That's what any reasonable person does, right?  So, today, when I had to go to the bank again, I was prepared.  Or, so I thought.  I brought my debit card, my account number and my passport.  Plus, two checks I had to deposit.  I also had to withdraw some money.  I figured my trouble, if I had any, would come when I tried to withdraw the cash...silly me.  I handed over all of the pertinent documents and the two checks.  This would only take a few minutes, I'd be out before the rain started.  The teller looked at both checks, sighed and shook her head and over the next 45 minutes, would go in and out of her cubicle at least six times and bring in two other people.  At one point, I was told that I'd need my husband's cedula or passport number to make the deposits.  I asked why - she told me she wasn't sure, but that's what they wanted.  It seems I never have every piece of documentation I need to access my own money.  I don't understand what happened with one of the checks, but I was told the same thing I'm always told here, "We can't do this.  Ever.  But today, we're going to make an exception just for you."  When I first got here and this happened, I was flattered that they'd be so nice, now I realize that telling you "no" and then "yes" is just the way things work here.  At this point, I'm so used to hearing that, I have to remind myself to feign gratitude instead of roll my eyes and mumble, "yeah, yeah, whatever, just snap it up."  Anyway, I was finally able to make the deposits.  Of course, making the withdrawal involved a whole new song and dance - passport, account number, signature...next time I'll make sure to bring my husband's info as well.  But, next time, I'm sure they'll have some new request, some new shred of paper or photo I.D. that I didn't bring, that is now absolutely vital to the transaction and I'll be stuck waiting for my "one time only" exception, as usual.