The boys, their two friends, and we three adults have been here many times. We’ve watched as huge container ships made their way ever so slowly in the direction of Kalama and Portland/Vancouver. The passing ships seem to dwarf the buildings on the waterfront.

We’ve always pointed out to the kids that when they buy an item in Portland such as a toy, there’s a strong likelihood that that very toy made its way to the pacific Northwest on such a vessel, and quite possibly navigated the Columbia if it didn’t head for Puget Sound or the San Francisco Bay.

So if the kids wonder about the salmon feeling intimidated by this shipping going on, or the pollutants from such vessels entering the estuary, they need only to consider that their own material demands, and the consequent supply in the Portland area (and everywhere else), contribute to the situation.

But what we talked about this weekend was the fact that Astoria has been a huge commercial focal point ever since Europeans and white Americans took a shine to the place. Animal pelts, then commercial fishing, made big money for some and provided work for a great many others.

We reflected on the area’s history and how, up until outsourcing came along, people could come here and find work.  One very dangerous job involved navigating boats of all sizes from the Pacific to the Columbia or vice versa. At the Columbia River Maritime Museum we viewed an excellent film and physical exhibits that highlighted the skills required to guide vessels past the Columbia Bar.

View of the Columbia River estuary and Astoria's downtown

We learned about the heyday of fish canning in Astoria, and about the many immigrants and Northwesterners whose histories were shaped by the world’s commercial interest in Pacific canned fish products.

The town today is quiet. It needs more tourism and something for visitors to do other than shake their heads about how capitalism once picked the place up then let it come crashing down when other, cheaper areas were found that could yield a better bottom line for some rich man.

We were impressed by the inherent dangers of the sea, especially of that point where the ocean fights against the currents coming out of the mouth of the Columbia River.

John Jacob Astor's famous column in Astoria

We drove up to the beautifully rendered Astoria Column, with sweeping views of the Columbia estuary and Cape Disappointment near Ilwaco, Washington.

We also drove past the original house used in the 80s comedy The Goonies.

Then we headed over to the beach south of Hammond, Oregon to view the steel skeleton of a large shipwreck. An archaeological approach raised the question: How can we determine which vessel this wreck is?

The answer? Measure the wreck’s length and width from the tip of the bow to the very last ribs in what would have been the stern, and estimate the size. Then enter the location and size of the vessel in a search, to cross check for any historical information of a lost ship that size. The area is home to many, many sunken vessels; the ship’s name is of course no longer proudly on display due to damage and the elements.  But it’s the wreck of the Peter Iredale, which occurred in 1906.

Stepping through time—through the hull of the Peter Iredale

And we were all set to keep going, make our way to Europe, and find month-to-month or weekly apartment accommodations in England, France, Germany and the Czech Republic.

But here’s the problem…we’ve kind of run out of steam.  The boys miss some of their friends.  I miss the days when they learned alongside other kids.

Homeschooling, or in our case, unschooling, has opened our eyes and minds to a new way of learning—interest-driven, location-driven learning.  But we’re a minority wherever we go, mostly because it isn’t easy to link up with other homeschoolers in different communities.  So, the boys have leaned heavily on each other since last summer.

About to embark on Latin I, and History Through Archaeology.

Now, though, we have decided to sign up for classes for homeschooled kids for the next ten weeks.  For the 10 and up crowd, there are great offerings such as Photoshop for Kids, Latin I, History Through Archaeology, Lego Robots, Mechanical Drawing, Zine & Comic Making, and Explorations in Veterinary Medicine, along with science, language arts, math, public speaking, and my favorite prospect, Alice Animation.

For my younger son, there are courses such as History of the Middle Ages, Gooey Messy Science, Animal Habitats, Little Foodies, Detective Agency, Math with Tiles, Jazz/Hip-Hop Dance, Capoeira, Global Kids classes, reading and folk tales.

The best news?  These classes occur on two and a half days each week.  We get little to no homework infiltrating our home, and we will have Fridays through Mondays to unschool—the majority of the week.

Also wonderful is how the program anticipates parental presence and involvement.  It’s not a “drop your kids off and drive the hell away” type of environment.  Back when my children attended public school, I always felt a disconnect from their day. Whenever I signed in to visit them in class or bring their birthday cupcakes, I always felt alien to the place, even though my flesh and blood were spending 32.5 hours, or a whole 1/3 of their waking hours, in that elementary building.

We now will take part in classes where parents are always welcome.  One drama class even has a policy in which any parent visiting the room will automatically be made into part of the day’s skit, as there is a no-spectator rule.

I have enabled us to learn in freedom for the last six months.  But I don’t see classes, or classrooms, as bad.  I also don’t view educators as detrimental, so long as they don’t hold the threat of grades over the children’s heads, and so long as the classroom is democratic and respectful.  Many homeschooling families lean on supplemental classes in the community to give their kids a well-rounded experience.  But what I’ve always had issue with is the family who sends a child to school for six or seven hours a day, only to have to head straight to Kaplan and Sylvan and art classes, sport activities, music lessons, and other events that rightfully should have, and in an ideal world could be, conveyed in those six or seven school day hours.

I say there is too much time in the regular schools spent on morning announcements, lining up, listening to the Charlie Brown-teacher whahh-whuh-whuh-whah-whah-whah, and doing 3-R’s-style busy work.

About to embark on capoeira, 2D math with tiles, and Lego robot making.

And I also say that an unschooling parent like me, who is relatively unstructured and lax (despite being an inquisitive person and globetrotter!), NEEDS to give her children an environment with adults and kids who use an organized, more structured framework to approach the learning experience.

Let’s hope that our new enrollment in the homeschool collective yields us a great deal of social connection, new thoughts, new skills, and new & like-minded friends.

In January 2010 we three enrolled in studio art twice a week, and completed six months of instruction. For me, it had been 31 years of not taking an art class; I sat beside the boys as we learned to draw big images of birds, using a photo of one as a reference.  I chose a photo of a woodpecker.

And the completed pencil-and-charcoal woodpecker was framed, and then hung in our dining room, in between the boys’ bird drawings.

With this in mind, you can imagine my surprise on December 31, 2010 when that exact bird smacked into our cabin window.

We tossed the poor creature some bits of healthy bread.

There was a sudden thud, almost like some kid had whipped a snowball at the glass.  But we’re the only guests right now—it’s the off season.  I looked out, then down, and then I saw it.  My woodpecker! Its black and orange wings were spread out over the crisp snow. The bird blinked, sat upright, yet didn’t move otherwise.  I googled its markings and colors and learned that it is called a northern flicker.

So after a few minutes, I sent the boys out there to toss it some hunks of 7-grain bread. We all wanted to feel like we were helping our little friend. “That’s the bird from your picture!” the kids said, each grabbing a slice of bread and then their snow boots.

It eventually came out of stun-mode, drew its splayed wings closer to its puffy chest, then got itself up and flew away.

I adored this coincidence.  The Maidu indians, native to this part of the Sierras, believe that the northern flicker is sacred; its feathers make up the ceremonial Maidu headdress.  A woman here well versed in Maidu culture told me that a flicker hitting my window has spiritual significance for my life.

My pencil-and-charcoal northern flicker woodpecker, anno 2010

What does it mean?  That the taking up of art after so many years was a significant breakthrough, not only for myself, but also for my parenting?

That my decision this year to take part in the kids’ creative endeavors such as studio art led to an overall rethinking of our journey, leading us to explore the California coast with a 2-man tent, then go live in a village in Central America?

The decision to unschool/homeschool indeed came with a thud:

This is your life.  Right now.  You don’t have to be plugged into the system if the system isn’t working for you.

Once the initial shock of this realization wears off, you can take flight.

There was a highway closure due to rockslides, one of which was fatal.  So I got the call:

“Can you bring a whole lot of premade masa on your way up here?”

“Uh, sure.  Where do I get it?”

Several stores and questions later, I was laden with 25 lbs. of chilled masa, heading up the twists and gorgeous turns of Highway 32.  It started snowing like mad one hour after we arrived.

The masa was soon put to work, mixed by hand with enormous quantities of pork drippings, then spread onto softened corn husks before a dollop of roasted pork shoulder, gravy, black olives and a sprinkling of raisins rounded out the blend.  Then the tamale was folded over and set in a Ziploc for freezing, to be steamed and eaten on Christmas.

We had a vegetarian version, a green chile one, pictured here.

We learned that you have to make them fast, but also make them carefully…too much masa on one end means they’ll never get done steaming. Too much filling means it won’t seal.

Taylorsville, CA, pop. 150 or so.

Taylorsville Tavern is famous for being from the gold rush era, and boasts one, maybe more, murders with a rumored ghost who haunts the back of the tavern. Nowadays it’s more famous for its colorful local barflies, men who came here not for gold but other commodities such as timber and cattle ranching.

We grownups enjoyed an open mic night there, honoring my hosts’ friend, who was killed nine days earlier in the rock slide that had closed the highway we would have taken up here. The tributes were poignant, often funny, and heartfelt.

Our car is stuffed with holiday gifts, bottles of eggnog and booze, and a variety of learning materials and games for the cold, indoor month to come in Plumas County.

Did I mention we love California?

One item NOT accompanying us is the boys’ Christmas present. A heavy thing, if I may say so. I’d been asked for three years if I could please give it to them…and I always answered with an emphatic no.

But here it is. I managed to get it at the Lego store for 10% off.   Does the discounted price even begin to erase my feeling of hypocrisy, that we were in an impoverished area of Central America for 3 months where some workers get less than $2 an hour, and north of there, where we were in Nicaragua, a great many people have to survive on $1.15 a day?

Does buying a 3000-piece set make me feel like a wimp who totally caved in to my kids’ obsession with Lego?

All I can say is this:  The boys—like their mom—dealt with a lot in Central America.  Change.  A huge drop in our standard of living and in our creature comforts.  New faces, new ways, a new language, and a dialect that didn’t match what we were hearing on Rosetta Stone.  A hot climate with innumerable bugs that managed to get into everything.  Most of the time, and often when I didn’t expect it, the boys were real troopers.

The Death Star just needed to happen.  It’s now part of our family, along with one ancient blue Blankey and three special stuffed animals we won’t easily part with.

So we will ring in the Solstice with tamales, mojitos, music, and laughter up in Plumas County, sans our most lavish Christmas acquisition.

Luke....I am your father!

Good things come to those who....pine for three years?

What did we accomplish in our three-month stay?  Roadschooling, unschooling, homeschooling?  Yes.

Learning a world language, and getting to speak it?  Yes, to a beginner-level degree.

Bonding more as a nuclear family in the absence of neighbors, relatives and playdate pals?  Absolutely.

Experiencing a different climate and latitude?  Uh-huh.

Gaining a more nuanced understanding of poverty?  Oh, hell yes.

Seeing firsthand how women and children closer to the Equator do not get to enjoy the kinds of economic power or rights that many take for granted in wealthier, more northerly lands?  You better believe it.

If you ask my children about their time in Central America as unschoolers, you’ll hear this:

We got to see real crocodiles in nature, on a river.  We got to go to a big market in Nicaragua where they sold traditional painted masks that were cool.  The birds had a lot of colors.  We liked getting to go to the local supermercado on our own, and buying Rojo Extreme Bubbaloo.  We got to see how the world is different from where we’re from—there’s a lot of poverty there.

We were surrounded by material poverty, but our own rented accommodations had creature comforts such as cable TV and internet access.  But without a cell phone, car, bicycle, washing machine, hot water, mail delivery, sidewalks, paved roads, clearly scheduled bus service, public library, bookstore, doctor, pharmacy, or fast food outlet in our area, it was like being sentenced to go backwards in time.

I disliked the reality that if there was going to be a decent meal on our wobbly plastic dining table, I had two choices:  either pay gringo prices to get meals from one of the local establishments—offering mostly greasy food to tourists—or pay equally gringo prices at the supermercado for a limited selection of frozen meat and produce that I would then prep and cook on a little gas stovetop.

A village supermercado in Costa Rica---our alimentary lifeline for 3 months.

Our lives in the Pacific Northwest had been a nice combination of healthy, on-the-go meals such as takeout sushi and Burgerville fast food—consumed on our many days doing studio art or swim team in the afternoons—and fun home cooking experiences in a more spacious and better appointed kitchen/dining area, one supplied with a variety of fresh and frozen items from area businesses.

Within a few days of my arrival, it became all too painfully clear that in this Central American village, it falls upon the woman to procure simple ingredients and “clock in” to prepare, serve and clean up after every meal, every day.  I felt chained to my tiny kitchen, and limited. Worst of all, fish and shellfish were not for sale anywhere in this supposed fishing village where we lived; there was only the random hope each week of two guys passing by in a pickup truck with frozen shrimp or fish in the back.  In three months, I got two frozen herrings from some kind lady on a red ATV who happened to know my Costa Rican neighbor.  The running joke was that I’d never get any frozen shrimp from that phantom shrimp truck to make arroz con camarones.  And I never did.

How nice it was, then, to come back to the U.S. and walk into Whole Foods to buy an herbal brining kit for the belated Thanksgiving turkey I needed to prepare. And even better, I noticed not one, but two brand new fresh seafood vendors in town.

Women—including busy solo moms like me—get to have consumer choices here that I had to learn to live without in Costa Rica.

Most of the women in the Costa Rican village where we lived are homemakers, though a few have jobs in one of the local supermercados or restaurants. Generally, the Costa Rican wives/mothers there do not have an expectation to work outside the home; they busy themselves with daily cooking, cleaning, laundry, yard care, and childminding, which includes overseeing their kids’ completion of homework.  It made me think of the forties and the fifties, only set to the crazy driving thud of reggaetón music from one of the restaurants every third night.

For the boys, a return home means bookstores, the library, and….stuff.  We all marveled at our sudden ability to get whatever we needed in five minutes at any Target, Toys “R” Us or Walgreen’s.

While we were out of the country, a new public library opened up in our area of town. So we went to it yesterday and today, to read and work on math problems.  And that was where it hit me:  There, on a series of shelves, were more Spanish-language titles for children and adults than I’d bet line the shelves of every single Costa Rican home between our village and the town of Tamarindo, a 35-minute drive.  That single library branch probably possessed more books, all totaled, than half of Guanacaste province.  I was stunned as I sat there in that clean, new building——a building with free services and free admission, free advice, free heating and cooling, free everything save for late fees.

What stunned me was not so much the relative cleanliness, organization and opulence of the place, but something more:  that all those women in that little village could probably not even conceive of such a place, a place that would offer them and their children broad access to new ideas and a wealth of knowledge and artistry from around the world. Those women, effectively chained to their kitchens and clotheslines, not to mention their marriages and their traditions, would not even know enough to expect, or (I dare say) demand, that such a facility be made available to their community.  Yet it is a standard expectation of people in North America.  Even two years after the economy tanked.

We are still overwhelmed by the holiday binge-shopping that surrounds us.  We also wonder if it has made all of us more hyper, more stressed, to have so many amenities reappear in our daily lives.

Yet it is wonderfully freeing not to have to escape the heat, and not to have to apply insect repellant.  And despite the evils of American consumerism, it is certainly reassuring and uplifting on our return to see shop after shop offering what we need, even if it also offers what so much of what we only think we need.

One was to sample an order of patacones, the twice-fried plantain slices that are Central America’s answer to the French fry. Unlike French fries, you get to enjoy these slices of deep-fried heaven with pico de gallo, guacamole, and tasty black bean dip.  This was a lovely departure from the usual fried ripe plantains, which are more gooey, pan fried in oil rather than deep fried, and much more banana-ey in flavor and texture.

The boys hated regular old fried plantains, so they wrinkled their noses at my beloved order of patacones (pictured here).  And that was just fine…more for their old mother! They say youth is wasted on the young.  Sometimes, so are great culinary delights.

Another item on my personal “bucket list” was to have one escape from village life…an afternoon spent in a swim-up bar at the Gringo-filled, pseudo-Costa Rican place we’d been to a couple of times in the very beginning of our stay——in the artificially created tourist enclave of Flamingo.

The boys swam and ate cheeseburgers and fries and drank mango smoothies while Stacy and I had rounds of Miami Vice cocktails (half piña colada, half strawberry daiquiri) and fiery buffalo wings. Later on, we shouted kamikaze shots back and forth with a terrific group of Americans on vacation from Baltimore.

The swim-up bar in Flamingo...where spoken English and Gringo-ness predominate

I suppose that I’d avoided the place for weeks and weeks mostly because it wasn’t reality. It was a place with Western prices and Ticos not there as fellow villagers, but as wait staff (and other Ticas, sometimes seated at the bar, as…working girls).

But the swim-up bar and burgers were a huge draw for the boys, so we all enjoyed an afternoon there.  We even got to feed maraschino cherries to the local iguana.  He’s a bar regular; it was hilarious to watch him gobble up each cherry.

The local iguana at the swim-up bar, who eats maraschino cherries.

Next on our list? A trip up to the highest point around, to the white castle that has been under construction for several years. The owner is some crazy old guy from Germany, so I am told. Locals don’t seem to understand why he would want to live all the way up there where the winds are quite strong and it’s a long, bumpy drive on unpaved, potholed roads to get anywhere.  It turns out that the German fellow has never lived there.  Locals says that the man jokes that once his castle is completed, and liveable, he will start a search for a wife.  Sadly, after coming to know the scruples of some of the working-girl population in the area, I imagine they’ll be lining up to wed the guy (à la Anna Nicole Smith & that billionaire old geezer from Texas).

But no matter.  We managed to get transportation up to the cool castle we’d always looked up to and pointed at as we walked the muddy village roads far below.  The 360-degree views from the white tower, of jungled hills, endless ocean and our two sparkling bays, were out of this world.

Flamingo Bay and the Pacific from the Castle

We finally made it to the castle tower, with two toddlers along for the ride.

We’d been playing in the northwestern U.S. with Michael (1/2 Mexican), Big Ian (all Mexican), Ray and Marcela (1/2 Colombian), and Diego and Paloma (3/4 Mexican). We knew we’d appreciate the chance to learn a bit of Spanish and gain some insights into the cultures south of our border.

So we bought Rosetta Stone for our laptop, and we figured we’d get a Spanish tutor while in Costa Rica.

The tutor didn’t materialize for some time. I suppose the fact that we had no car, no phone, very busy volunteer program directors, and limited Spanish proficiency all contributed to a situation in which no private local tutor could be found. One lady from much farther inland did come to our town to give us a lesson in September, but she never made it back the following week…car trouble? The hourly wage not worth it? The heavy rains which made the muddy drive too difficult? Who knows. She sort of dropped off the face of the earth.

But there was Rosetta Stone on our trusty laptop as our consolation. With Rosetta, you drill, you repeat, you read, and sometimes, you even get to type. I loved my first encounter with they keyboard tilde and that crazy, goofy upside down question mark. Spanish is great, I wrote to Tania, my Colombian pal in Portland, because I get to type upside down exclamation marks!¡!¡

Rosetta helped me the most, though. I noticed that while the boys liked the cool pictures and getting to use my computer, they preferred to watch TV and imitate the excited Spanish commercials on Cartoon Network. As the weeks went by, doing Rosetta became more like an obligation to them, and less like something fun. And that was a shame, because I was burning rubber on the software, getting myself through all four sections of Level 1. I was thinking about grammar, about Latin roots of words, about how Spanish differs from the French I had in school and college.  But my sons pretty much just wanted to hack around, learn silly songs, and not feel like they were under the gun to get answers right.

Enter Ivette, the Spanish tutor we eventually found——of all things, through the help of more recently arrived American program volunteer (who somehow lucked out better than we ever did in terms of finding a way to procure local tutoring). Once we got Ivette’s contact information, we embarked on a family Spanish odyssey that wound up being the very best part of our time in Guanacaste.

Ivette, unlike Rosetta, is a human being. She laughs.  She gives us a glass of cool water on a hot day.  She creates a lovely home environment for lessons.

Learning Spanish at Ivette's dining table

She listens to our stories and tells us hers. She jots down the various structures we’re trying to use in Spanish, and lets us reread them to her. She plays games with the boys and lets them win little prizes such as small necklaces or foreign coins. She is a native of the country we are visiting, and she is proud of her heritage, just as we are proud of ours. Most importantly, she makes us feel smart and capable, just as she is smart and capable.

Rosetta Stone can give me hours and hours of practice, and I am a huge fan. Rosetta Stone can occupy me on long flights, on sleepless nights, and whenever I feel like hearing and speaking Spanish back in the U.S. But I must always remember that my kids much prefer Ivette to the software, much as they prefer to play with their friends outside rather than watch TV. Television and computers can only at best be a supplement for the best foreign language teacher—a human being.

Ivette's home, a wondrous environment for learning, and being

I’ve learned a lot of Spanish compared to the boys. I am speaking in whole sentences, asking questions, looking things up in my dictionary. The boys, by contrast, seem hesitant, even passive about their immersion opportunity in a Spanish-speaking country. But I know that Ivette has given them a spark. They now know that there are tools like Rosetta Stone at their disposal. And they know that Spanish awaits them if someday they want to cultivate more of an interest in actual fluency and proficiency.

Mama turtle tracks in the sand.

The beach is black volcanic sand. We learned that mama turtles love this sand’s warmth and texture for laying eggs. We also learned that the turtles need protection, especially since the mothers are in a sort of trance while laying eggs.

We walked the beach in the late afternoon, close to sunset, and returned the next morning well before sunrise in order to catch a glimpse of a female turtle making her nest.

Luck wasn’t on our side, though. We had a terrific sunset and beautiful views, and a dramatic sunrise and more beautiful views, but the only adult turtles we got to see were dead ones whose bodies were being picked clean by groups of black vultures.

An adult Olive Ridley turtle skull, picked clean by vultures

Vultures and stray dogs attacked every nest and feasted on the vulnerable, endangered baby turtles. It was disgusting. Nature, sure, but disgusting. These turtles are endangered, and yet the local community appears not to be concerned about the packs of strays roaming the beach.

Hey, Fido----leave those baby turtles alone! You too, Hitchcock!

The beach was a festival of vultures on the sand, digging in turtle nests, and hanging out in nearby trees.

We know where they'll go to film the Costa Rican remake of "The Birds."

It was hard to explain to the boys that this was an example of nature’s food chain. Seeing the one baby turtle, who was so helpless and wounded, made all of us really sad. We released the wounded baby into the ocean, but none of us believed he’d make it.

Stacy came along with us to the Buena Vista Canopy and Spa Tour, which is a day trip including a 400-meter water slide on the slopes of Rincon de la Vieja, a higher-altitude national park complete with volcano vistas, hot springs, thick forests, and numerous morpho butterflies.

Stacy loves ziplining!

Canopy zipline tour, Rincon de la Vieja

Stacy loves volcanic mud!

Volcanic spa treatments using fumarole mud from Rincon de la Vieja!

Stacy loves speaking Spanish! Especially when our guides are so chusco….

Hot Latin men on horseback! Mmm-mmm. I so need to photoshop out that fugly Oregon-shirt dude.

Stacy loves Charlie the dog!  Here we are at a gelato place outside our village.

Charlie in our local gelateria

All in all, Stacy is fun.  And the boys now know that Stacy has a mom in New Jersey who might just be willing to keep an eye on Charlie if Stacy decides to take Charlie from Costa Rica to the U.S.  Stacy is working on her mother, wearing her mother down so that she’ll let her adopt Charlie, my son writes in his journal.  I know that the boys, too, would love a dog, and yet our roadschooling & traveling lifestyle won’t allow for it.  Spending time with Stacy has enabled both of them enjoy a little bit of vicarious living with a devoted, adorable pet.

Stacy on the lookout for Costa Rican crocodiles on the Rio Tempisque

Good luck to you in Guatemala and in Morristown, Stacy.  We’re so happy we could hang out in Costa Rica and get up close & personal with no fewer than sixteen (dieciseis) crocodiles (cocodrilos americanos).

When it comes to things that crawl, I’ve developed a surprisingly thick skin and calm demeanor.

But when you live in a rural village far, far away from medical care, far away from antidotes to all the various venoms that the insect and reptile kingdoms can throw at a person, you might become uneasy there as the parent of inquisitive little boys.

And so it was that day in my outdoor Spanish lesson when a giant, hairy Costa Rican tarantula decided to crawl toward my sandals.

There was another time, too, when our neighbors’ cat decided he’d like to snack on a live gecko.  So what that we were in Costa Rica—the three of us just stood there and watched in horror.

That gecko was likely one of the little fellows who frequented the walls of our apartment, doing benign, useful things like eating mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes = Your life in Costa Rica when the sun isn’t blazing overhead.   Therefore:

Geckos =  Your friends in Costa Rica.  Let them crawl anywhere in your home they want to.

We had snakes in our midst, and on a nighttime nature hike in Monteverde, we used flashlights to spot boa constrictors and smaller snakes curled up in the trees. Sometimes the fact of roadkill made us aware that snakes could, and did, come on our property.

This fellow was on his way to our yard, when a car intervened....

Tarantulas like to guard their egg sac in the hollow of fallen bamboo. I let our guide shine the flashlight as I stood at a deferential distance with my camera on big-time zoom!

Costa Rica's famous orange-kneed tarantula, with her egg sac

We had the pleasure of visiting live scorpions, leaf insects, walking sticks and other fascinating creepy crawlies in Santa Elena’s Insect World.

Morpho butterflies and other beautiful insects in Santa Elena

But it wasn’t the incredibly gorgeous butterflies that held the boys’ interest.  It was the more fear-inspiring creatures:

A very hands-on insect museum in Costa Rica