21:30 I spent the majority of today
unpacking, doing laundry, sorting my room with the new additions I had received
from home, and hanging out with the guys who told me a lot about nature and the
stories they had growing up with all these animals around.
After lunch a few more volunteers
including the Canadian guy (volunteer coordinator) and a couple of Swedish
girls came to San Miguel with the park administrator, who did some magic for
us. We hung out and in the evening until
most the volunteers headed off to the ‘market’ (small “Soda” store) whilst one
of the Swedish girls and I collected some firewood.
During the fire close to bedtime we
observed what we decided was either a small Kinkajou or a Pygmy Mouse
Opposum? It was brown in colour, with
big eyes and ears which caused us to move from a Martilla (Kinkajou), to a type
of squirrel or monkey (It was high up, very nimble but we later figured it was
the “Martilla” or Kinkajou as one of the Costa Ricans first guessed). It was pretty rare, but special, sighting to
see a somewhat illusive nocturnal animal in the wild.
At dinner we made some amazing garlic
bread. We had a discussion about
language seeming we had representative of England, Canada, Costa Rica, Germany
and Sweden at our table and somehow got to the word butterfly. Butterfly, Mariposa and Flutterbri (spelling)
all sound lovely and then this German volunteer announced in German it is “Schmetterling,”
which I said sounds like you are going to smash something, and funnily enough
‘schmeter’ does mean smash! Which was hilarious. As I headed for bed I heard one of the Costa
Rican volunteers playing his harmonica which was cool.