Octopus

Posted bytravelbug5
This is not an octopus, but I found it by the pool. It’s a green and black poison dart frog. This one is a male. If you look closely, there are two black tadpoles stuck to its back.He will carry them until he finds a little pool in a bromeliad plant where he can put them. He’ll guard them until they can make it on their own.

I still don’t have any pictures, but Bill should be pulling some off of his GoPro. I bought a new Kodak underwater camera, but it doesn’t take good pictures, so I’m planning to send it back. Maybe I’ll get a GoPro too.

We had a pretty fun day. We had errands to run this morning. I needed some Costa Rican money and we had to find a place to get gas for the scooter. There are no gas stations for miles around, but there is a small quick shop that sells bottles of gas. I’m not sure that’s legal and several people I talked to here didn’t seem to know about it, but at least we have a place to get gas. Bill also found a dive shop this morning and set up a dive for tomorrow. The dive season here just ended, but the water is still good enough tomorrow and maybe Saturday. I’m planning to snorkel, and the shop also has a paddle board river trip that I would like to do.

This afternoon, we snorkeled at Playa Arrecife where Bill will dive tomorrow. It was awesome! Great beaches and really good, safe snorkeling. We saw lots of little fish in various colors, some sea worms and I found an octopus! It was really exciting. I never spot anything and I have a hard time with my goggles fogging, but I spotted it under a flat brain coral (they actually look like brains). Bill got some pictures and video and we watched it for a while. We tried to offer it some toys but it wouldn’t come out of its hiding spot. It did keep sticking its eyes out to watch us and it put its arms out a little ways. I love octopuses so it was really fun to see one up close. They are super smart! We also saw a ray. Overall, it was a fantastic snorkel trip.

There is a French bakery across the street owned by a French couple. I’ve gotten stuff there a couple of times. They have really good deserts. They moved here 8 years ago. They decided that the world was becoming too unstable and they wanted a safer place than France to live. They toured the world and considered moving to Thailand but the Thai government changed for the worse so they decided on Costa Rica instead. Their rationale was that even if the world goes to hell, you can still survive in Costa Rica. It’s stable, it doesn’t have a military so it won’t be fighting any wars. You can grow food here all year and keep animals so you won’t starve. They also love hot weather so they seem pretty happy here. They gave me tips on how to move here. It was a short conversation but interesting. I love being able to talk to people from all over the world with lots of different experiences. I kind of wish I was brave enough to leave everything and move to Costa Rica, but I don’t know how to run a bakery, and they probably don’t need American history professors or associate deans. I need a job where I can work from home and have home be down here!