Elimination

My most prized material possession for the last 2 years is no longer with me. We thoroughly enjoyed a few days in Mal País/ Sta Teresa, Costa Rica on the Pacific coast. The stop was quick but nice and we met some interesting people. Unfortunately, my ipod grew arms, disconnected itself from the charger then grew legs and walked away. We have no idea how it disappeared and NOTHING else in our room was touched. Alice's ipod was even in plain site and mine was under my exploded luggage on the floor, further from the door. The following day's 12 hours of travel to the Caribbean coast was a bit brutal. No book, no music and hours and hours of bus... I guess now I have one less thing to carry, one less thing I can lose.

Yesterday we arrived in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. All of Costa Rica is beautiful and the Costa Ricans are really kind. My biggest complaint about them is that sometimes they try to be too helpful.

We met a local dive instructor on the bus to Puerto Viejo. Through him, we found an opportunity to help out with a regional disaster. A hurricane in Florida (I think in '92) destroyed an aquarium containing 3 Lion Fish. Lion Fish are not native the to Caribbean are very poisonous and have no predators. The 3 little fish multiplied and multiplied and multiplied. They are now threatening many species and essentially the entire ecosystem of the Caribbean. Lion Fish eggs float on the surface so they can travel and spread over long distances very quickly. Groupers have been eating the Lion Fish but their poisonous spines kill the groupers. It's a disaster in the making. We spent the first half the day snorkeling the reef off the beach of Puerto Viejo looking for Lion Fish. Unfortunately, Alice, Rachel and I were unsuccessful at finding them but the guys working for the project trying to protect native species caught 7, 6 juveniles and a small adult. It was fun to get out and volunteer a little time to help out, even if we weren't so helpful.

Next we are getting ready for Halloween and trying to make of the most of the few days we have here. Ciao