My sister managed to load Whatsapp on her phone recently.

For those of you unfamiliar, it’s a text, phone and video chat app that’s very popular at the moment. If you want to contact me here in CR it’s the best way.

It’s relatively secure and easy to use and helps me keep in touch with family and friends.

I use it to text chat and send pictures / videos as I travel. And today my mother had the first video chat of her life. I’m very proud of her. She only shouted at the phone for the first 30 seconds.

We did a little walking tour of the apartment, talked about shopping for food, the cost of housing here, the weather etc. It’s always good to catch up with family and find out what’s happening at home. My mum had recently had a pineapple from Costa Rica and approved of the quality and flavour. As my sister put it, “she’s happy now she knows Costa Rica can provide for her first born”. Admittedly I will have to eat more than pineapples but having the support of your family when you are off on such an adventure is fantastic.

Flora and Fauna

Rather randomly my mum asked if there were spiders in Costa Rica. According to some estimates it’s home to over 500,000 species (about 4% of the total species estimated worldwide), making Costa Rica one of the 20 countries with the highest biodiversity in the world. Of these 500,000 species, a little more than 300,000 are insects. And we won’t even mention the flora (20 species of orchid alone!). So I confidently answered yes, we have spiders. Why?

According to an article in the Daily Mail, there will be an “invasion” of spiders this bank holiday weekend in the UK (which is not generally known for its biodiversity). My mum has gone on spider alert, and my sister is apparently the “Aranea cum sicario disputabo” (Spider Assassin), called on when any are found within the walls of the castle (they live in a detached 5 bed but it was sounding more like Game of Thrones the longer we went on).

And then my mum, with all seriousness, told me one of her friends found a spider “that wouldn’t fit in a pint glass”.

So I now have a new challenge. I am going to find a Costa Rican spider that won’t fit in a pint glass. I don’t actually have a pint glass with me in my backpack but I’ll improvise.

LTPV!

Gary