Ok, we are now staying at an Air B&B in a town in the Allegheny National Forest, far northern Pennsylvania. I recommend Air B&B highly, people share their houses with you for a reasonable fee, giving you a deeper understanding of the area you are visiting. I love the Pennsylvania woods, since I grew up in Pittsburgh and fell in love with nature in these forests. They are so different from Central American forests. There are far fewer epiphytic plants growing on trees - maybe a few ferns, etc. The trees are more uniform and tend to be about the same size, rather than the wide range of tree sizes and species you find in Costa Rica. Of course, you don't get monkeys, sloths, etc. - many tropical animals need to live where they can find fruit or leaves year round, and you don't get that in autumn or winter here. The species of plants and animals here are more adapted to cooler climates, and harsh winters. Every place has its own unique character. Our host has been telling us how there can be bears in the neighborhood, red tailed hawks zip through the yard, deer are everywhere. I can love Pennsylvania and Costa Rica. No contradiction there. We have been here since mid afternoon, more to come.

We are, in truth, alive!

We flew into D.C., getting to our hotel in Arlington, Va. around 11. It was utterly bizarre waking up in a world of heavy trafic, condos, fancy shopping malls. The big employer around there is the Pentagon. Our friend Ben picked us up around noon on Thusday, we have been at his place in Virginia since then. Our friends Ellen and Don from the Pittsburgh area have been here since Friday night. Lots of feasting and hijinx. Don and Ellen will drive us to theri place in Butler, Pa today. Tomorrow w'll rent a carn and visit Presque Isle in Lake Erie, then Allegheny National Forest. If I can post from there I will, if not, will post from the 'Burgh around Thursday. Take care all!

Words of wisdom from Ted Geisel...

...aka Dr. Seuss ´´Don´t cry because it is over, smile because it happened.¨ We will try. It should be obvious that we think Central America is wonderful, with all its difficulties, bittersweet as life is. I highly recommend it as a traveling destination. I will be reflecting and maybe sending more thoughts soon. We are in the town of Herredia, a university town near the airport. It is kind of a shock. We thought it would be quiet, but it hass massive traffic, bad air, people rushing about madly. Maybe it is because we haven´t been in a city in more than a month, but it exhausted us and, to be honest, makes it easier to leave. But we will be back in Central America one day, I will share thoughts about that later. We fly to D.C. tomorrow, getting in quite late. Our friend Ben, who some of you readers know, will pick us up at a hotel Thursday morning. We will spend some time at his house, and Don and Ellen, again who some of you know, will join us. We are figuring out time after that... will check in Thursday to let you know we are in the U.S. As they say down here, Pura Vida!

Children´s Eternal Rain Forest

We visited this place, in the Monte Verde Highlands on our last trip, and still love it! It is not technically a rainforest, it is a wet-moist forest, which is dryer than a rainforest and has many fewer epithetic plants, or plants that grow on other plants. They abound in rain forests, we saw many at Arenal and other places. The story here, in a nutshell is that a group of Swedish schoolkids contacted Costa Rican naturalists in the ´80s, saying they wanted to buy land and preserve tropical forests. The project has grown from there, children from all parts of the world have contributed money for more land. Last night we went on a night hike with a guide, which was wonderful. Crickets sang to us while we saw a tarantula, a sleeping mot'mot or longed tailed bird, a sleeping toucan, a large snake far from us in a tree, two porcupines and much more. Night times are very magical in a tropical forest. Today we hiked listening to the song of the bell bird ' ¨GONG! Tweet!¨¨ over and over is as close as I can get. Once again butterflies were everywhere, along with winged walking sticks which look as ethereal as small fairies when they fly.We saw more monkeys, and a mother coati a racoon relative,with two babies, and an agouti, a large but harmless rodent. A wondrous place which I also plan to stay in touch with and revisit some day. We also visited an interesting exhibit with lots of information about bats and many bats flying back and forth. Bats are fascinating, and they share a common ancestor with primates,meaning monkeys, apes, and us. No I am not making this up. Tomorrow we go to the town of Herredia near the airport, and fly back to the U.S. Wednesday. Will check in tomorrow if I can, if not, Thursday from the U.S.

Today we got up at 430 to go birding with Gerald, a wonderful Costa Rican guy who runs our hostel and is a naturalist. He is a huge wealth of information. I wrote copious notes after the trip, way too much for details here, but we will post some photos and info later. I will mention the black faced mannakin. The male of this species builds a structure from three sticks in the forests, dances around it, and vibrates his feathers to make a clicking sound and attract a mate. Birders come from across the world to hear this, we heard two! There is another mannekin species that Gerald says does a version of Michael Jackson´s moondance, dancing backwards to attract his lady love. After this we went to Volcan Arenal National Park. Astounding!! We hiked through thick forest, where cicadas´ deafening calls are the woods´giggling breath. The wind in the trees sounds like a deluge, gurgling Montezuma orioles try to drown out both sounds.Grasshoppers are everywhere, camouflaged on large greel leaves. We also saw a small slug with the shape and color of a dead leaf ' amazing bit of mimicry! The forest is so thick you can´t see what is past the first few trees beside the trail, you are wrapped and nurtured by deep green shade. One tree was huge, with butress roots the size of wooly mammoth trunks. At a certain point, you leave the forest and scramble over basalt, volcanic boulders. Looking one direction you see Lake Arenal. The other direction is the volcano, dome shaped and inconceivably huge. Its sides are volcanic black, with patches of green indicating plant growth, and its peak is wrapped in mist. On the way back to the bus we saw many butterflies, including the red, white and black postmen who fly fast and refuse to be photographed, and green lizards with blue stripes on their backs. I will write more detailed descriptions of all this, but am done for now. Tomorrow we will go to the Monte Verde cloud forest region, Tuesday to the town of Herredia, Wednesday we fly back to the U.S. Ve are very sad, but the adventure will continue. More from Monte Verde.

Some thoughts

First, Kate´s photos are wonderful. The interesting thing about that sloth she posted is that they usually stay high in trees and don´t move much, eating leaves and having a very slow life. We were surprised to see this one so fardown the tree trunk, bt Patricia at Tree of Life Wildlife Rescue told us this happens, that they are comfortable around people. This sloth was gone a few hours later, that surprised us. One of those mysteries. Our departure day is coming, we feel sadness. We love Central America, the people, culture, nature history are wonderful, and the slow, simple pace of life is very fine. Still, there is a lot of poverty and deep sadness here. There is a long history of difficult struggles here. Today, many of the businesses are foreign owned, and money is taken from the countries. It is difficult to come with the best of intentions, as many people do, and realize that our perceptions of ourselves and the region are very difficult from Central Americans´. Much to ponder and reflect on here, which I may do in this blog when we get back to the U.S. One thought re Panama, it is a beautiful country, with friendly people. The government has a policy of attracting retirees from the U.S. and other developed countries, offering them discounts on things like restaurants, movies, and much more. I am sure the idea is to bring money into the country. I wonder how poor Panamanians, who have to struggle for simple necessity and do not have support see this policy. Anyway, much to consider here. Tomorrow we hike on Volcan Arenal ' more after that.

While in Cahuita, we visited a wildlife rescue center. Lots of monkeys, not all happy at our presence.

These are tent bats, which moved into the center on their own. They bite the palm leaves to create a cover for their colony.

This blind kinkajoo was recued from dogs.

This sloth is one of the animals we saw in Cahuita National Park. We also saw monkeys, some amazing birds, a raccoon, an agouti and other animals. We have just moved on to Fortuna, by Arenal Volcano.