Los Cocodrilos y Manuel Antonio

This past Friday I had an absolutely incredible experience at the Escuela de la Ganaderia (the cattle school where I am working two days a week). I did not start off the morning at 5:30 by shoveling manure, which is what I had done the Wednesday before. I am helping this guy, Esteban, with all of this work, part of which is in an organic farm, hence the manure. (Esteban reminds me of Marty McFly). But we also go around to feed the animals, which include iguanas and peacocks, agoutis (which are a large rodent like a capybara), and crocodiles. Why does the cattle school, which produces cheese, milk, yogurt and meat, also have all of these wild animals? This is a question I cannot answer.
Anyways, on Friday we went to go take care of the agoutis, and we usually count some of the juvenile crocodiles (cocodriles en espanol) as well. There are a few different cages that have cocos of various ages and sizes, from less than a foot long to 4 feet long. Then there is also a huge lagoon where they keep the big mean ol' nasty crocs. I watched as these guys cut up hunks of cow and then we took them to the lagoon. One of the guys flung huge chunks of meat into the lagoon and it was amazing to watch all of these crocs swarm the meat and fight over it, then stick their heads up vertically in the air and chew the food down. These things move so quickly and then disappear beneath the water, and their teeth are huge. But this wasn't even the cool part of my day!!
There was a veternarian and his student there, and they were checking on the crocodile eggs that had been incubating for the past 3 weeks. They had put the eggs in a crate with dirt, and all the eggs at the top had dried out, and we opened them to find that they were dead. It was really sad. I was holding one of these eggs in my hands and it started to move around inside, and then it started to break its shell, when I was holding it! It was so amazing--we helped break the shell open and there was this tiny crocodile in all of its yoke and ambiotic fluid, with its little teeth and claws, que pequeno!!! We opened a bunch of the other ones and helped all of these little crocs to be born! It was so amazing! I checked the eggs that had been at the top as well, the ones that had been written off as dead, and there were two that were still alive. We had to suture off their ambilical cord (yes, they have them, attached to all of the yoke inside; I didn't know this either) and they made these little baby cries, which were so sad but cute because they were coming from baby crocodiles!! We don't know if all of them will live because some of them were very young and not ready to be born on their own, but their eggs had cracked under the pressure of the dirt so we had no choice. We made a little crocodile nursery for all eleven of them, they were all so cute!!! Those little sounds that they made, it was ridiculously cute!!!

I went to Manuel Antonio for the weekend, it is a national park that is right on the beach on the Pacific coast. It was really beautiful, I hiked through the park and then stopped on the beach to swim at these incredible white-sand beaches. There were tons of white-faced monkeys, and there was a three-toed sloth as well. The vistas from the hike were amazing, and it was just so cool to be at a tropical rainforest that then extended into the sand and gave way to these amazing beaches. The forest was nowhere as dense as Monteverde had been, but this had the added bonus of being on the beach. I swam all morning on Sunday, and body surfed before heading back to Atenas.
I am sort of getting preparations together for when my family comes to visit--we are going to go to the Arenal volcano and then hit up the beach!!! I have also started to work at this orchid nursery after my Spanish classes. Today was my first day, and it is an organization of artesan women that get together and it is sort of a network for women and their interests as well as a nursery. Today was Karina's last day (another volunteer) so we just sat around and had cakes, talking. Karina says that it is a lot of work, but that there is lots of time to talk and you really get to know all of the women. An excellent way to learn and perfect Spanish every day! They also want to learn English, so today we had our first lesson, teaching them hello, goodbye, thank you, and the numbers to 10. They are all so sweet, and some of them talk a mile a minute and I get lost pretty quickly. And, of course, all of them have at least one son (some have up to three) that they want me to meet so that I can be their girlfriend. So, even more possibilities than just the cowboys here in Atenas!