Seasons greetings to all from Pachamama!

Navidad is upon us and can be seen in the obvious scenery of lights and adornos, but also in the season’s greetings among friends in the streets and supers.  One thing that is missing from the So Caribe is the hustle and bustle of last minute shopping (except for picking up tamale fixins or a walk through Limon Centro) because there just is not too much retail around here.  Highlights of the season include the return of the Colorado monkeys (or Spiders) from a couple month hiatus.  First we found out they were around from guests out on the kayaks because they were up the river…with babies (the Monkeys that is),,and then they have started coming around, but the white-faced Capuchins (Cari-blancas) have been the dominating force as they swoop through to snack on the leaves and bananas. 

We had this one banana tree (the kind with seedy bananas) that the toucans just loved and when it finally died off we missed them being so close to the house so we hung up some old plantains and the next morning 20 cari-blancas showed up and came down fearfully one by one and grabbed one.   Fortunately they saved some for the toucans, but we don’t really want to start feeding the animals intentionally or they might turn out like the ones in Cahuita and Manuel Antonio that start to steal your belongings

A couple other highlights include Monday Jazz nights at Magic Ginger, Costa Papito starting up jazz nights and a couple other places putting together some regular nights of reggae and calypso music.  This gives guests some nice options around dinner time for some entertainment.  Not sure if it is just because it is nearing high season, but it is welcomed.

Another Pachamama highlight was the arrival of a couple Canadian families to end up 2007 with us in the bungalows.  We remodeled the bungalows so we could offer a kitchen, have a bigger patio, and welcome larger groups, and it all worked out well because 9 people took over the 2 bedroom house and seemed to be have a great time.  The kids spent plenty of time together at the beach , around the property, and doing crafts etc…We’ll miss them, but glad they had fun and are off to other adventures across the country.  We had some great weather to welcome the end of the year with one all day all night rain and hope the sun holds up for the Navidad.  However you celebrate this time of year, the Pachamama family of Bill, Cathy, Cassidy, Liam, Linda & Lucy, and Maria & Alberto wish you the best!  As they often say here in Costa Rica “Nuevo Ano, Nueva Vida”, or New Year and New Life….

July ended up with several nice sunny days strung together and the national holiday celebrating Guanacaste’s annexation into Costa Rica (that is the extent of my historical knowledge on the subject, but it is a cause for celebration here). The end result of this was that pretty much every hotel in the So. Caribe was booked and the beaches, local eateries, and streets were bustling with activity. Here at Pachamama things were still pretty quiet since we only have the two bungalows and house, but I was reminded how nice it is to have so many trees on the property because when you get back from a trip to “town” or the beach it just seems to drop 10 degrees in temperature when you walk through the gates of Pachamama and into our lush jungle gardens.

 The Spider monkeys, or Colorados as they are known locally, made many appearances this past week and everyone always stops what they are doing to watch their acrobatics flying from tree to tree. These monkeys are pretty rare in the area, but use the river to move up and down from the mountain to feed and frolick (the monkey is in the middle

Our kids, Cassidy and Liam, kindly donated 20 2’ Almendro saplings they started from fallen fruit to the Monkey Bridge project to help develop habitat for monkeys in the area. We have also had many sloths popping in including this mother and baby. It is hard to get good pictures of the monkeys and sloths because of the lighting, but in this case the sloth was only about 10-15 feet off the ground so it was a little easier.

We are convinced that when we are not looking that the sloths move with lightning speed because they are always in a different tree an hour or so later…we’ll have to spy on them sometime.

And of course as always, our guests are the bright spot at Pachamama and this month we had some very special guests from Costa Rica, Mexico, France, Canada, Holland, England, and the United States. All our guests have unique stories, especially one this month that was a vet and spayed our dogs and fixed one’s broken leg while visiting us, but we decided not to name or talk about our guests in the blog. I’ll leave you with a song written this past week swinging in a bungalow hammock by a guest and longtime friend of the family. We all gathered around and he played guitar and sang our new theme song to the tune of “This land is your land”

This land is your land, this land is my land
From Punta Uva to Playa Negra
From Tortuguero to Puerto Viejo
This land was made for you and me!

I felt so free on, that plane from Limon
All the way, from San Jose
From what I see, it’s clear to me
That this land was made for you and me.

Well you can’t panic, lying on a hammock
There’s no high drama, at Pachamama
There is no fear, with Punta Uva beach so near
This land was made for you and me

There’s Howler monkeys, up in the high trees
I bet Stephen King, would like how they sing!
And the mid-day showers, make the beautiful flowers
This land was made for you and me

Thanks Bill & Cathy, bold Liam & Cassidy
Here’s three (or four) cheers, to these pioneers
Thanks for the vacation, in this wonderful nation
This land was made for you and me!

This land is your land, this land is my land
From Punta Uva, to Playa Negra
From Tortuguero to Puerto Viejo
This land was made for you and me!!!

 Thank you to Scott and all of our guests for making Pachamama a great place to be for us too!

Bill & Cathy here, we’re really excited about our new website and thankful to Doug for all his hard work and assistance.  We liked our old site and it did a good job of conveying the beauty of Pachamama and Punta Uva, but we needed a little more room to describe all the neat things that go on here, and our committment to providing the best amenities and service possible to our guests.  We also wanted a guestbook for the memories and for people to get a glimpse into what it is like to stay here.  The blog will serve as our way to keep people up to date on recent activities and happpenings at and around Pachamama.  Probably the most exciting happening has been the arrival of our new Kayaks (Ocean Kayaks Frenzy).

Now people can jump in a Kayak right on our property and cruise up the river to view all sorts or Monkeys, Sloths, birds and beautiful natural jungle settings, or Kayak down the river to the Blue flag Punta Uva Beach.  Lately there have been some excellent waves (for Punta Uva that is) for kayakers right off the point.  You jump on the little waves ride them 20 meters and the exit off and jump back on…Some people have gotten sunburnt from not wanting to come in…of course Punta Uva is usually much calmer and oftentimes as still as glass, which makes for 50+ feet visibility snorkeling, but usually it is more like 20.  July has been rainy, but more and more it is breaking early and we”re getting some nice sunny beach days for our plants and our guests…Recent guests have been from London on a Latin American adventure, two couples from Montreal, and several families from San Jose Costa Rica here for the break…We had an entire family from Heredia come up to our house and watch the Costa Rican sub 20 team…whatta blast and their friends son McDonald, scored the winning goal!…Come check us out and we’ll do our best to keep the blog entries coming every week or so.

 Bill & Cathy Carroll